why study humanities essay

Home — Essay Samples — Science — Humanities — The Importance of Studying Humanities

The Importance of Studying Humanities

Categories: Humanities

About this sample

Words: 772 |

Published: Sep 12, 2023

Words: 772 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Understanding the human experience, appreciating cultural diversity, engaging with complex social issues, developing a well-rounded education, promoting lifelong learning, challenges and opportunities.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

Expert in: Science

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 372 words

2 pages / 1033 words

2 pages / 845 words

1 pages / 678 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Humanities

Exploring the depths of human understanding, the query "what is social science?" beckons us to delve into the intricate realm of human societies, interactions, and behaviors. This exposition embarks on a journey through the [...]

Loyalty is a complex and multifaceted concept that has been the subject of much debate and discussion throughout history. It is a fundamental human value that is essential for maintaining relationships, whether they be personal, [...]

Khaled Hosseini's novel, The Kite Runner, is a powerful and emotionally charged story that explores the complexities of friendship, betrayal, redemption, and the impact of the past on the present. Through the use of various [...]

The comitatus, a code of loyalty and honor, was a central aspect of the warrior culture in Anglo-Saxon England. This code was especially prominent in the realm of heroism, which was celebrated in the epic poem Beowulf. The poem [...]

Arts and humanities go hand in hand. Art is more on the creation and the expression of ideas, while humanities are more on the analysis of art. They both relate to culture and human behavior and have always played significant [...]

The health humanities emerged constructively in the first half of the 21st century. In 1972 Prof Joanne Trautmann was appointed as the first professor to teach literature in an American medical school. Anne Hudson Jones played a [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Humanities at Illinois

Why studying the humanities matters, why study the humanities, the world needs humanists.

In a world that’s increasingly automated, people who can use words effectively are vital to building relationships and perceiving new possibilities. Countless leaders agree—for example, Steve Jobs has mentioned that "it's in Apple's DNA that technology married with liberal arts married with the humanities yields the result that makes our heart sing."

When you graduate with a humanities degree , you'll have a skill set that employers are actively looking for—humanities students gain expertise in creative thinking, communication, problem solving, relationship building, and more. No matter what you want to do, choosing a humanities major from the University of Illinois will prepare you for a bright future.

Hear from English and Latina/Latino studies alumna Issy why humanities education is important for all students, read on to learn more, and then apply to a humanities major at the University of Illinois.

What are the humanities?

What is the study of humanities ? Humanities involve exploring human life's individual, cultural, societal, and experiential aspects. Studying humanities helps us understand ourselves, others, and the world. If you're interested in humanities, you'll find a variety of subjects to choose from.

The objects of the humanities are the values we embrace, the stories we tell to celebrate those values, and the languages we use to tell those stories. The humanities cover the whole spectrum of human cultures across the entire span of human history.

The College of LAS offers dozens of humanities majors , so as a student at UIUC you're sure to find a path that's right for you. Many of your classes will be small enough to allow intense, in-depth discussion of important topics, guided by teachers who are leading experts in their fields. You will learn from people who know you and take a personal interest in your success. This experiential, interactive learning is deeply satisfying, a source of enjoyment that is one good reason to major in the humanities.

What you learn also will be useful in any career you pursue. Specialized training for a specific profession has a very short shelf life, but the knowledge and skills that come with studying the humanities never go out of date.

To study the humanities is to cultivate the essential qualities you will need in order to achieve your personal and professional goals as you help to create a better society for all human beings.

Why are the humanities important?

Studying the humanities allows you to understand yourself and others better, offering better contexts to analyze the human experience.

So, why is humanities important, and why is it critical to study them? Human values are influenced by religion, socioeconomic background, culture, and even geographical location. The humanities help us understand the core aspects of human life in context to the world around us.

The study of humanities also helps us better prepare for a better future. They teach you skills in the areas of critical thinking, creativity, reasoning, and compassion. Whatever your focus, you'll learn the stories that shape our world, helping you see what connects all of us!

W hat is humanities in college ? What will your courses look like? Just a few popular humanities majors include English, philosophy, gender studies, and history. And while these studies might center around different topics, settings, and even periods in human history, they all share a common goal of examining how we are connected.

Humanities studies may seem less concrete than STEM studies, and some might consider them a luxury we can't afford in a culture that values capital over society. This raises some common questions: Why is humanities important right now? Is it even relevant to our lives today? The answer to those questions lie in how the humanities help us in understanding human culture , emotions, and history—which is vital now more than ever!

As technology advances—such as with artificial intelligence and machine learning becoming more common—it might seem like human beings are becoming less central to the world's workings. That may lead to asking, "why is humanities important if humans are required less in day-to-day operations?" The reality, though, is that rapid changes and development in our world only make the constant aspects of human nature more crucial to explore and celebrate. A deep understanding of humanity gained by studying the humanities helps us not only navigate but also thrive through these changes. The humanities are vital to preserving the core of what makes us human.

So, why study humanities?

What is the study of humanities going to do for my career? Why is humanities important for my work ?

These are two questions commonly asked when students consider an academic journey in the humanities. The journey from classroom to career may not seem as direct for humanities students as those following more defined career paths. However, it’s that nebulous nature that make them such excellent choices. The skills you learn from your studies, like creative thinking, emotional intelligence, and communication, are essential to any career and industry.

And if you are asked, "What is humanities studies ' advantage compared to more 'concrete' subjects like math or science?," you can simply answer that the humanities make you stand out. Employers highly value the nuanced skills gained from humanities studies . In today's rapidly evolving job market, the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, and understand complex social and cultural contexts can set candidates apart.

Ready to take the next step?

You’ll be ready for any future you can imagine by earning a degree in the humanities from the University of Illinois. Apply to a humanities major today!

Hilbert College Global Online Blog

Why are the humanities important, written by: hilbert college • feb 6, 2023.

A smiling human resources specialist shakes hands with a new hire.

Why Are the Humanities Important? ¶

Do you love art, literature, poetry and philosophy? Do you crave deep discussions about societal issues, the media we create and consume, and how humans make meaning?

The humanities are the academic disciplines of human culture, art, language and history. Unlike the sciences, which apply scientific methods to answer questions about the natural world and behavior, the humanities have no single method or tools of inquiry.

Students in the humanities study texts of all kinds—from ancient books and artworks to tweets and TV shows. They study the works of great thinkers throughout history, including the Buddha, Homer, Aristotle, Dante, Descartes, Nietzsche, Austen, Thoreau, Darwin, Marx, Du Bois and King.

Humanities careers can be deeply rewarding. For students having trouble choosing between the disciplines that the humanities have to offer, a degree in liberal studies may be the perfect path. A liberal studies program prepares students for various exciting careers and teaches lifelong learning skills that can aid graduates in any career path they take.

Why We Need the Humanities ¶

The humanities play a central role in shaping daily life. People sometimes think that to understand our society they must study facts: budget allocations, environmental patterns, available resources and so on. However, facts alone don’t motivate people. We care about facts only when they mean something to us. No one cares how many blades of grass grow on the White House lawn, for example.

Facts gain meaning in a larger context of human values. The humanities are important because they offer students opportunities to discover, understand and evaluate society’s values at various points in history and across every culture.

The fields of study in the humanities include the following:

Literature —the study of the written word, including fiction, poetry and drama
History —the study of documented human activity
Philosophy —(literally translated from Greek as “the love of wisdom”) the study of ideas; comprising many subfields, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics
Visual arts —the study of artworks, such as painting, drawing, ceramics and sculpture
Performing arts —the study of art created with the human body as the medium, such as theater, dance and music

Benefits of Studying the Humanities ¶

There are many reasons why the humanities are important, from personal development and intellectual curiosity to preparation for successful humanities careers—as well as careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and the social sciences.

1. Learn How to Think and Communicate Well ¶

A liberal arts degree prepares students to think critically. Because the study of the humanities involves analyzing and understanding diverse and sometimes dense texts—such as ancient Greek plays, 16th century Dutch paintings, American jazz music and contemporary LGBTQ+ poetry—students become skilled at noticing and appreciating details that students educated in other fields might miss.

Humanities courses often ask students to engage with complex texts, ideas and artistic expressions; this can help them develop the critical thinking skills they need to understand and appreciate art, language and culture.

Humanities courses also give students the tools they need to communicate complex ideas in writing and speaking to a wide range of academic and nonacademic audiences. Students learn how to organize their ideas in a clear, organized way and write compelling arguments that can persuade their audiences.

2. Ask the Big Questions ¶

Students who earn a liberal arts degree gain a deeper understanding of human culture and history. Their classes present opportunities to learn about humans who lived long ago yet faced similar questions to us today:

How can I live a meaningful life?
What does it mean to be a good person?
What’s it like to be myself?
How can we live well with others, especially those who are different from us?
What’s really important or worth doing?

3. Gain a Deeper Appreciation for Art, Language and Culture ¶

Humanities courses often explore art, language and culture from different parts of the world and in different languages. Through the study of art, music, literature and other forms of expression, students are exposed to a wide range of perspectives. In this way, the humanities help students understand and appreciate the diversity of human expression and, in turn, can deepen their enjoyment of the richness and complexity of human culture.

Additionally, the study of the humanities encourages students to put themselves in other people’s shoes, to grapple with their different experiences. Through liberal arts studies, students in the humanities can develop empathy that makes them better friends, citizens and members of diverse communities.

4. Understand Historical Context ¶

Humanities courses place artistic and cultural expressions within their historical context. This can help students understand how and why certain works were created and how they reflect the values and concerns of the time when they were produced.

5. Explore What Interests You ¶

Ultimately, the humanities attract students who have an interest in ideas, art, language and culture. Studying the humanities has the benefit of enabling students with these interests to explore their passions.

The bottom line? Studying the humanities can have several benefits. Students in the humanities develop:

Critical thinking skills, such as the ability to analyze dense texts and understand arguments
A richer understanding of human culture and history
Keen communication and writing skills
Enhanced capacity for creative expression
Deeper empathy for people from different cultures

6. Prepare for Diverse Careers ¶

Humanities graduates are able to pursue various career paths. A broad liberal arts education prepares students for careers in fields such as education, journalism, law and business. A humanities degree can prepare graduates for:

Research and analysis , such as market research, policy analysis and political consulting
Nonprofit work , social work and advocacy
Arts and media industries , such as museum and gallery support and media production
Law, lobbying or government relations
Business and management , such as in marketing, advertising or public relations
Library and information science , or information technology
Education , including teachers, curriculum designers and school administrators
Content creation , including writing, editing and publishing

Employers value the strong critical thinking, communication and problem-solving skills that humanities degree holders possess.

5 Humanities Careers ¶

Humanities graduates gain the skills and experience to thrive in many different fields. Consider these five humanities careers and related fields for graduates with a liberal studies degree.

1. Public Relations Specialist ¶

Public relations (PR) specialists are professionals who help individuals, organizations and companies communicate with public audiences. First and foremost, their job is to manage their organizations’ or clients’ reputation. PR specialists use various tactics, such as social media, events like fundraisers and other media relations activities to shape and maintain their clients’ public image.

PR specialists have many different roles and responsibilities as part of their daily activities:

Creating and distributing press releases
Monitoring and analyzing media coverage (such as tracking their clients’ names in the news)
Organizing events
Responding to media inquiries
Evaluating the effectiveness of PR campaigns

How a Liberal Studies Degree Prepares Graduates for PR ¶

Liberal studies majors are required to participate in class discussions and presentations, which can help them develop strong speaking skills. PR specialists often give presentations and speak to the media, so strong speaking skills are a must.

PR specialists must also be experts in their audience. The empathy and critical thinking skills that graduates develop while they earn their degree enables them to craft tailored, effective messages to diverse audiences as PR specialists.

Public Relations Specialist Salary ¶

The median annual salary for PR specialists was $62,800 in May 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS expects the demand for PR specialists to grow by 8% between 2021 and 2031, faster than the average for all occupations.

The earning potential for PR specialists can vary. The size of the employer can affect the salary, as can the PR specialist’s level of experience and education and the specific duties and responsibilities of the job.

In general, PR specialists working for big companies in dense urban areas tend to earn more than those working for smaller businesses or in rural areas. Also, PR specialists working in science, health care and technology tend to earn more than those working in other industries.

BLS data is a national average, and the salary can also vary by location; for example, since the cost of living is higher in California and New York, the average salaries in those states tend to be higher compared with those in other states.

2. Human Resources Specialist ¶

Human resources (HR) specialists are professionals who are responsible for recruiting, interviewing and hiring employees for an organization. They also handle employee relations, benefits and training. They play a critical role in maintaining a positive and productive work environment for all employees.

How a Liberal Studies Degree Prepares Graduates for HR ¶

Liberal studies majors hone their communication skills through coursework that requires them to write essays, discussion posts, talks and research papers. These skills are critical for HR specialists, who must communicate effectively with company stakeholders, such as employees, managers and corporate leaders.

Additionally, because students who major in liberal studies get to understand the human experience, their classes can provide deeper insight into human behavior, motivation and communication. This understanding can be beneficial in handling employee relations, conflict resolution and other HR-related issues.

Human Resources Specialist Salary ¶

The median annual salary for HR in the U.S. was $122,510 in May 2021, according to the BLS. The demand for HR specialists is expected to grow by 8% between 2021 and 2031, per the BLS, faster than the average for all occupations.

3. Political Scientist ¶

A liberal studies degree not only helps prepare students for media and HR jobs—careers that may be more commonly associated with humanities—but also prepares graduates for successful careers as political scientists.

Political scientists are professionals who study the theory and practice of politics, government and political systems. They use various research methods, such as statistical analysis and historical analysis, to study political phenomena: elections, public opinions, the effects of policy changes. They also predict political trends.

How the Humanities Help With Political Science Jobs ¶

Political scientists need to have a deep understanding of political institutions. They have the skills to analyze complex policy initiatives, evaluate campaign strategies and understand political changes over time.

A liberal studies program provides a solid foundation of critical thinking skills that can sustain a career in political science. First, liberal studies degrees can teach students about the histories and theories of politics. Knowing the history and context of political ideas can be useful when understanding and evaluating current political trends.

Second, graduates with a liberal studies degree become accustomed to communicating with diverse audiences. This is a must to communicate with the public about complex policies and political processes.

Political Scientist Specialist Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for political scientists was $122,510 in May 2021. The BLS projects that employment prospects for political scientists will grow by 6% between 2021 and 2031, about as fast as the average for all occupations.

4. Community Service Manager ¶

Community service managers are professionals who are responsible for overseeing and coordinating programs and services that benefit the local community. They may work for a government agency, nonprofit organization or community-based organization in community health, mental health or community social services.

Community service management includes the following:

Training and overseeing community service staff and volunteers
Securing and allocating resources to provide services such as housing assistance, food programs, job training and other forms of social support
Developing and implementing efficient and effective community policies
Fundraising and applying for grants grant to secure funding for their programs

In these and many other ways, community service managers play an important role in addressing social issues and improving the quality of life for people in their community.

Community Service Management and Liberal Studies ¶

Liberal studies prepares graduates for careers in community service management by providing the tools for analyzing and evaluating complex issues. These include tools to work through common dilemmas that community service managers may face. Such challenges include the following:

What’s the best way to allocate scarce community mental health resources, such as limited numbers of counselors and social workers to support people experiencing housing instability?
What’s the best way to monitor and measure the success of a community service initiative, such as a Meals on Wheels program to support food security for older adults?
What’s the best way to recruit and train volunteers for community service programs, such as afterschool programs?

Because the humanities teach students how to think critically, graduates with a degree in liberal studies have the skills to think through these complex problems.

Community Service Manager Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for social and community managers was $74,000 in May 2021. The BLS projects that employment prospects for social and community managers will grow by 12% from 2021 to 2031, much faster than the average for all occupations.

5. High School Teacher ¶

High school teachers educate future generations, and graduates with a liberal studies degree have the foundation of critical thinking and communication skills to succeed in this important role.

We need great high school teachers more than ever. The U.S. had a shortage of 300,000 teachers in 2022, according to NPR and the National Education Association The teacher shortage particularly affected rural school districts, where the need for special education teachers is especially high.

How the Humanities Prepare Graduates to Teach ¶

Having a solid understanding of the humanities is important for individuals who want to become a great high school teacher. First, a degree that focuses on the humanities provides graduates with a deep understanding of the subjects that they’ll teach. Liberal studies degrees often include coursework in literature, history, visual arts and other subjects taught in high school, all of which can give graduates a strong foundation in the material.

Second, liberal studies courses often require students to read, analyze and interpret texts, helping future teachers develop the skills they need to effectively teach reading, writing and critical thinking to high school students.

Third, liberal studies courses often include coursework in research methods, which can help graduates develop the skills necessary to design and implement engaging and effective lesson plans.

Finally, liberal studies degrees often include classes on ethics, philosophy and cultural studies, which can give graduates the ability to understand and appreciate different perspectives, cultures and life experiences. This can help future teachers create inclusive and respectful learning environments and help students develop a sense of empathy and understanding toward others.

Overall, a humanities degree can provide graduates with the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to be effective high school teachers and make a positive impact on the lives of their students.

High School Teacher Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for high school teachers was $61,820 in May 2021. The BLS projects that the number of high school teacher jobs will grow by 5% between 2021 and 2031.

Take the Next Step in Your Humanities Career ¶

A bachelor’s degree in liberal studies is a key step toward a successful humanities career. Whether as a political scientist, a high school teacher or a public relations specialist, a range of careers awaits you. Hilbert College Global’s online Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies offers students the unique opportunity to explore courses across the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences and craft a degree experience around the topics they’re most interested in. Through the liberal studies degree, you’ll gain a strong foundation of knowledge while developing critical thinking and communication skills to promote lifelong learning. Find out how Hilbert College Global can put you on the path to a rewarding career.

Indeed, “13 Jobs for Humanities Majors”

NPR, The Teacher Shortage Is Testing America’s Schools

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, High School Teachers

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Human Resources Specialists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Political Scientists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Public Relations Specialists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social and Community Service Managers

Recent Articles

College students work on a project together in a campus park.

Humanities vs. Liberal Arts: How Are They Different?

Hilbert college, feb 3, 2023.

A smiling college student holding a notebook.

What Is Liberal Studies? Curriculum, Benefits and Careers

Oct 24, 2022.

Starting a Podcast: Checklist and Resources

Dec 10, 2023, learn more about the benefits of receiving your degree from hilbert college.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Introduction: Why Study the Humanities?

The Humanities: Exploring What It Means to Be Human

The humanities can be described as the study of human experience and the way in which people define and document their experience through philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history, politics, and language. Viewing the human experience through a humanities lens provides insights that extend beyond statistical data and field reports. Humanities facilitate our understanding of things we may never experience directly, by viewing people and events in the context of their surrounding circumstances. Incorporating context allows us to appreciate the extensive breadth and depth of human experiences from different cultures, locations, and time periods.

This reader explores the humanities by documenting and processing people’s interpretations of what it means to be human. These human experiences are divided into four themes: Diversity & Difference , Human Rights & Genocide , Reform & Revolution , and Happiness & Spirituality . For each theme, selected humanities artifacts are presented in the context of their historical, social, political, personal, cultural, economic, and other settings.

Reverse Teaching

This humanities reader utilizes a teaching and learning method called reverse teaching . It means we will approach the humanities a little-back-to-front in comparison to traditional textbooks. Instead of presenting humanities artifacts as a collection of conceptual or theoretical categories, we will actively explore each humanities artifact in the context(s) that helped create it. This in-context analysis facilitates a fuller, more meaningful understanding of how humanities artifacts represent human experience.

Cogito, Ergo Sum —Proof of Human Existence

Cogito, ergo sum is a Latin phrase by the French philosopher and mathematician Ren é Descartes that translates into, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes proposed that human self-awareness was evidence of human existence. Other facts or ideas can be disproved, but our ability to question whether we exist proves that we do. In other words, “[W]e cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt.”

The following excerpt from A D iscourse on Method (1637) further refines Descartes’ argument:

[English] “Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us. And because some men err in reasoning and fall into Paralogisms, even on the simplest matters of Geometry, I am convinced that I was as open to error as any other; rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken for Demonstrations. And finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations), which we experience when awake, may also be experienced when we are asleep. While there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this, I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be something. And as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am, was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the Sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search.” [French] “Ainsi, à cause que nos sens nous trompent quelquefois, je voulus supposer qu’il n’y avait aucune chose qui fût telle qu’ils nous la font imaginer; Et parce qu’il y a des hommes qui se méprennent en raisonnant, même touchant les plus simples matières de Géométrie, et y font des Paralogismes, jugeant que j’étais sujet à faillir autant qu’aucun autre, je rejetai comme fausses toutes les raisons que j’avais prises auparavant pour Démonstrations; Et enfin, considérant que toutes les mêmes pensées que nous avons étant éveillés nous peuvent aussi venir quand nous dormons, sans qu’il y en ait aucune raison pour lors qui soit vraie, je me résolus de feindre que toutes les choses qui m’étaient jamais entrées en l’esprit n’étaient non plus vraies que les illusions de mes songes. Mais aussitôt après je pris garde que, pendant que je voulais ainsi penser que tout était faux, il fallait nécessairement que moi qui le pensais fusse quelque chose; Et remarquant que cette vérité, je pense, donc je suis, était si ferme et si assurée, que toutes les plus extravagantes suppositions des Sceptiques n’étaient pas capables de l’ébranler, je jugeai que je pouvais la recevoir sans scrupule pour le premier principe de la Philosophie que je cherchais.”

Meta-Cognition: Thinking About Thinking

Given this fantastic capacity to think and to question, we could argue that thinking is what sets us apart from other living things. This process of thinking about thinking is called metacognition . Metacognition is invaluable for humanities studies, or any critical analysis, because it forces us to challenge our preset values and principles.

We humans look at the world through a lens, one shaped by personal interests, family and peers, religion (or lack thereof), and other factors. We gravitate towards people and opinions that align with our own. We resist data that could change our minds. Being aware of our tendency to stick with what is familiar and affirming will help us recognize that what we perceive as truth is highly dependent on our personal knowledge and experiences.

How Do We Humans See the World?

An o ptical illusion takes advantage of how the human brain organizes and prioritizes visual information. These images trick the human brain into perceiving something that is not present or choosing one image over another.

The following illustration merges two images into the same picture. The brain interprets the visual information and chooses which image it wants to see. Because of the way the illustration is drawn, most people readily see a young woman. It takes a bit more concentration to discern an old crone. Notice it is difficult to perceive both women simultaneously because the brain chooses to see one image or the other but not both.

Rubin’s Vase is a famous optical illusion created by Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin to show how the brain prioritizes visual information. His theory explains that when two images share a common border, the brain automatically assigns one image to the foreground (positive space) and the second to the background (negative space). The yellow color draws the brain’s attention, making the vase the primary image.

British puzzle master Henry Dudeney created a puzzle that exploits the human brain’s inability to envision negative spaces. The illustration shows playing cards laid out into a square. The goal is to create a swastika inside the square using only four cards. Try to figure out the solution using playing cards, or c lick on the image to reveal the solution .

These examples highlight how easily our brains automatically lead us into seeing what we want to see. In the next chapter, Creative & Critical Thinking , we will look at methods to overcome these mental obstacles.

The Human Experience: From Human Being to Human Doing Copyright © 2020, Edition 1 by Claire Peterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

A look at history and popular culture

Collections: The Practical Case on Why We Need the Humanities

(Note: Thanks to the effort of a kind reader, this post is now available in audio format here )

I have been holding off writing something like this, because it is often such a well-worn topic and I hardly wanted to preach to the converted. But at the same time, the humanities need all of the defenses they can get and I’ve found, looking at the genre, that my answers for why we need the humanities are rather different from the typical answer.

But first, the shameless plug that if you , yes you! want to support the humanities, you can support this humanist by sharing my writing, subscribing with the button below or by supporting me on Patreon . Your support enables me to continue telling you and other people to continue supporting me, a giant self-devouring ouroboros of support that will grow to become so large it will crush the world (I look forward to regretting this joke in the future).

Email Address

Edit: A friendly reminder to those in the comments: you will be civil . This thread has prompted some spirited discussion. That’s fine. But it will remain polite.

What Humanities?

First, just to define my terms, what are the humanities ? Broadly, they are the disciplines that study human society (that is, that are concerned with humanity): language study, literature, philosophy, history, art history, archaeology, anthropology, and so on. It is necessarily a bit of a fuzzy set. But what I think defines the humanities more than subject matter is method ; the humanities study things which (we argue) cannot be subjected to the rigors of the scientific method or strictly mathematical approaches. You cannot perform a controlled trial in beauty, mathematical certainty in history is almost always impossible, and there is no way to know much stress a society can bear except to see it fail. Some things cannot be reduced to numbers, at least not by the powers of the technology-aided human mind.

By way of example, that methodological difference is why there’s a division between political science and history , despite the two disciplines historically being concerned with many of the same subjects and the same questions (to the point that Thucydides is sometimes produced as the founder of both): they use different methods . History is a humanities discipline through and through, whereas political science attempts to hybridize humanities and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) approaches; that’s not to say historians never use statistical approaches (I do, actually, quite a lot) but that there are very real differences in methodology. As you might imagine, that difference leads to some competition and conflict between the disciplines as to whose methodology best answers those key questions or equips students to think about them. Given that I have a doctorate in history and self-identify as a historian, you will have no trouble guessing which side of this I come down on, although that might be a bit self-interested on my part.

So if the STEM fields are, at some level, fundamentally about numbers, the humanities are fundamentally about language . The universe may be made of numbers, but the human mind and human societies are constructed out of language. Unlike computers, we do not think in numbers, but in words and consequently, the study of humans as thinking creatures is mostly about those words (yes, yes, I see you there, economics and psychology; there are edge cases, of course). Our laws are written in words because our thoughts form in our heads as words; we naturally reason with words and we even feel with words. Humans are linguistic creations in a mathematical universe; consequently, while the study of the universe is mediated through math, the study of humans and human minds is fundamentally linguistic in nature.

Thus, the humanities.

Oh, the Humanities!

Now I want to note here the standard defense of the humanities, which is that the study of human culture, literature and art enriches the soul and the experience of life. This is, to be clear, undoubtedly true . There is joy and richness in the incredible kaleidoscope of human expression and a deep wisdom in the realization of both how that expression joins us, and how radically different it can be. There is also the enjoyment of developing a ‘palette’ for art and literature which is enhanced by knowing more of it, in being able to see the innovations and cross-connections (the ‘intertext’ to use the unnecessarily fancy academic term). This is all very much the case. There is a reason that rich people with abundant free time have consistently gravitated to the study of the humanities, or supported it.

But this is a weak defense of the humanities as they are currently constructed . The fact is that the academic humanities exist because people who do not study the humanities fund them. The modern study of the humanities, in its infancy, was paid for by wealthy elites who wanted either that joyful richness or at least the status that came from funding it. I should note here also that the humanities were never for the teachers of the humanities, but for its students. The rich funders of the humanities were rarely the authors of the great treatises or studies; rather they wished to be the readers of them (and likewise, the modern academic humanities are not for professors, but the students we teach; more on this next time ). Down until really quite recently, education in the humanities was largely reserved for that elite and their academic clients. As public support for the humanities continues to decline, many humanities fields seem in real danger of reverting back to that status: a prestigious toy for the already-rich and already-elite.

Avoiding that retreat of the humanities back into the wealthy elite means defending the humanities on different grounds. Of course, the traditional humanities will always survive at Harvard or Cambridge or Yale. But for the humanities to actually be generally available, they need to survive, to thrive, outside of those spaces. And yet, no good that is tethered to colleges can be justified solely through the benefit it gives the holder. Colleges, after all, are publicly funded, but while everyone pays taxes, not everyone goes to college . The OECD average rate for tertiary-education-completion among adults is around 37% and not all of those are four-year university degrees. To break down the United States’ data, while 44% of Americans have completed some kind of tertiary education, putting the USA towards the top of the scale (and around two-thirds have at least some college, though they may not have completed it), only 35% of Americans have a four-year degree . And of course, only a subset of those degree-holders will have taken very much in the way of the humanities. Which means the taxes that pay to fund the public universities that make up the great bulk of the study of the humanities are going to mostly come from people who have not, or could not, avail themselves of a humanistic education .

Even if we made the humanities available to all – a goal I robustly support (it is one reason I am spending all this time working on this open, free web platform, after all) – that effort would likely have to be publicly funded through a great many tax-payers who did not care to consume much of the academic products of the humanities (even if they consume many of its pop-cultural byproducts without knowing it). We must be able to justify the expense to them . And alas, while I love crowd-funding (did I mention, you can support me on Patreon ?), it is simply not an alternative for the research and teaching environment of the university (though I think it is and ought to be an important parallel model, for reasons I’ll get into in a moment). The fact is that while ‘short’ essays, blog posts and public-facing books can be popularly funded, the slow, painstaking work that forms the foundation for those efforts has no ready popular market ; but without the latter, the former withers (as a note: my next Collections post will be on the process by which knowledge filters from the latter to the former).

We must be prepared to explain the value of the humanities to people for whom the humanities hold no interest, or appear out of reach (though I feel the need to again reiterate that I think it behooves society to put the humanities within reach for everyone).

The Pragmatic Case for the Humanities

So rather than asking – as many of these sorts of ‘defenses of the humanities’ do – “why study the humanities” the question we ought to ask is “ why would you put down money so that other people can study the humanities? ” The STEM fields have long understood that this is the basis on which they need to defend their funding; not that science is personally enriching, but that it produces things of value to people who are not scientists, engineers, mathematicians or doctors . And they have ready answers in the form of inventions, medicines, soundly constructed machines and so on.

I firmly believe that the humanities can be defended on these terms and will now endeavor to do so.

The great rush of STEM funding that has slowly marginalized the humanities within our education system (it was, for instance, not hard to notice growing up that my school district had a special high school for students gifted in “science and technology” but no such program for students gifted in writing, art, history, and so on) has long been justified on national defense grounds. We needed science to ‘beat the Russians’ and now we need it to ‘beat the Chinese.’ I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of if ‘beating the Chinese’ (which I think, would be better phrased as ‘deterring the leaders of the PRC from mutually destructive conflict’) is a worthwhile goal. But I want to assess the humanities on that strict, materialistic basis (even though I believe there is rather more to our lives and world than a strict materialist outlook), because if the disciplines of the humanities may be justified on these grounds, they may be justified to anyone.

The core of teaching in the humanities is the expression of the grand breadth of human experience. As I hope the images I’ve been using throughout this essay have conveyed, when I say the humanities, I do not just mean a study of the traditional Western canon (by which I mean Greece, Rome, the Renaissance (but rarely the Middle Ages), all in Europe), but of the humanities spread widely over time and space . A ‘humanities’ which covers only elite European men is a narrow field indeed, to its detriment (the same could be said of a field that excluded them, but there is little chance of that). On the one hand, this provides a data set of sorts – a wide range of information about places, cultures and people. But more importantly than that, it is meant to teach students how to go about learning about a place or a people not their own, to inspire a degree of ‘epistemic humility’ (that is the knowledge that you do not know everything ) and also what I call an ’empathy of diversity’ – the appreciation that the human experience and the things humans do and value varies quite a bit place to place and person to person and that what seems strange to us seems normal to others.

(That is, by the by, not an invitation to endless crass moral relativism – some strange foreign customs are bad , some comfortable domestic customs are bad too . Accepting that I, and my society, do not have a monopoly on virtue is not the same thing as declaring virtue itself an impossibility, or even that it is undiscoverable in an absolute sense.)

These experiences, bottled up in artwork, literature, languages, histories and laws, forms the evidence base of any given humanities discipline. But that breadth of evidence, properly delivered, teaches through experience to a depth that merely saying the maxim cannot, two core things: that in the human experience, the human component is constant , even while the experience is not . That is, on the one hand, “the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there” (and foreign countries are foreign countries too!) but at the same time – homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto (I am human, and I think nothing human to be alien to me). Put another way: people are people, no matter where and no matter when, but the where and when still matter quite a lot!

(Now you might argue that there are certain trends within the humanities which present this or that maxim as a transcendent, nearly theological proof and thus fundamentally undermine this message by undermining both epistemic humility and the empathy of diversity with the promise of One True Revelation. And I agree! I am very troubled by this. But the problem is hardly solved by dumping the entire study altogether; if anything, the shrinking of the humanities has made this problem worse as smaller and more poorly funded departments are easier for political interests with ‘one true revelation’ to colonize and dominate.)

The other thing we ask students to do, beyond merely encountering these things is to use them to practice argumentation, to reason soundly , to write well , to argue persuasively about them. That may sound strange to some of you. I find that folks who have not studied in the humanities often assume that each discipline in the humanities consists of effectively memorizing a set of ‘data’ (historical events, laws, philosophies, great books, etc) and being able to effectively regurgitate that information on demand. Students often come into my class thus impatient to be ‘told the answer’ – what is the data I need to memorize? But the humanities are far more about developing a method – a method that can be applied to new evidence – than memorizing the evidence itself. Indeed, the raw data is often far less important – I am much more interested to know if my students can think deeply about Tiberius Gracchus’ aims and means than if they can recall the exact year of his tribunate (133, for the curious).

What a student in these classes is – or at least, ought to be – doing is practicing a form of considered decision-making : assessing the evidence in a way that banishes emotion and relies on reason (which is why we encourage students to write plainly and clearly, without too much rhetorical flourish), and then explaining that reasoning and evidence to a third partly clearly and convincingly . Assertions are followed by evidence and capped off by conclusions in a three-beat-waltz with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of clarity. Different disciplines in the humanities have different kinds of evidence and methods of argument they use – legal argument isn’t quite the same as historical or philosophical argument – but they share the core component of argumentation. I tell my students that even if they never use any fact or idea they encounter in a history course ever again in life – unlikely, I think, but still – they will still use these skills, practiced in formal writing but applicable in all sorts of circumstances, for the rest of their lives in almost anything they end up doing.

What is being taught here is thus a detached, careful form of analysis and decision-making and then a set of communication skills to present that information . Phrased another way: a student is being trained – whatever branch of specialist knowledge they may develop in the future – on how to serve as an advisor (who analyzes information and presents recommendations) or as a leader (who makes and then explains decisions to others).

And it should come thus as little surprise that these skills – a sense of empathy, of epistemic humility, sound reasoning and effective communication – are the skills we generally look for in effective leaders . Because, fundamentally, the purpose of formal education in the humanities, since the classical period, was as training in leadership .

As I’ve already noted, in much of the past, this sort of education was quite clearly limited to a hereditary (or effectively hereditary wealth-defined) class of leaders. Elite Roman education began with basic grammar, but extended to the analysis of poetry, the reading of literature and from there into the study of rhetoric, history and philosophy. Particularly for history, the ancient Greeks, with whom the discipline of history began, left little mystery as to its purpose: history as a field existed to inform decision-making and leadership. As Thucydides puts it, “but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content” (Thuc. 1.22.4). Plutarch ( Alexander 1.1-3) and Polybius (1.1.1-4) are similarly direct. Polybius goes so far as to say “men have no more ready corrective of conduct than knowledge of the past” (Plb. 1.1.1). But the same was true for the reading of literature, the development of knowledge in law, oratory and philosophy. These were leadership skills , taught to aristocrats who were assumed to be future leaders. This was true not merely in Greece and Rome (where I just happen to have the easy textual references) but in every sophisticated agrarian society I am aware of, from the universities of medieval Europe to Chinese aristocrats training for Imperial examinations .

(As an aside – note that the use of history in particular in this way is not merely because ‘history repeats.’ In the first case, history does not repeat; if it did, we should surely be around to the second (or third) Akkadian Empire by now. Rather, as Thucydides says, human affairs resemble themselves , because they contain in them the same one dominant ingredient, the one thing the humanities study: humans. The best guide to future human behavior is past human behavior, and history is the best way to sample a lot of that behavior, especially in circumstances that are relatively uncommon.)

Does anyone look at the present moment and conclude that we have an over-abundance of humble, empathetic, well-trained and effectively communicating leaders?

Soft Skills in Soft Power

That is, of course, not the only thing the humanities offer to a society. As I noted above, the steady marginalization – as a matter of education and funding – of the humanities in favor of STEM in the United States has been motivated by the need to ‘win’ geopolitical contests. And perhaps the most obvious benefit of the humanities, particularly in the geopolitical sphere, is the soft-power aspect of a robust culture ‘industry.’ No rocket, no weapon-system of any kind was as instrumental in the collapse of Soviet Communism as Hollywood and Rock’n’Roll – or more correctly the vast culture edifice that those two ideas are used to represent. The Soviet Union wasn’t defeated with missiles, after all, it collapsed from a failure of ideological legitimacy ; a crisis of words not numbers. What we’ve seen again and again over the last century (and even longer, if one cares to look) is that the vast soft power of cultural cachet is often far more cost-effective than new weapons (in part because new weapons are just so expensive). Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, but remained an important place for centuries, while Sparta – which won – sank into irrelevance. It is hard not to conclude that Athens lost the war but decisively won the peace and that it was the latter victory that actually mattered.

The response to this is typically the glib assumption that this cultural ‘effectiveness’ is simply the product of chance, or individual genius or just a product of markets. But the fact is no one is born a great producer of culture; all of the skills are trained. And they are refined against a backdrop of deep complexity, of interleaved references and homages to older and older works. Those rich traditions are kept alive in the humanities to provide so much of the raw material for new artists and writers to hammer into new ideas, new mixtures of old themes and motifs. And while academic cultural criticism can often be self-indulgent and jargonistic, it serves an important role of examining the motifs we would otherwise use unthinkingly, which in turn can lead to the production of yet better (or just new) art. It also trains us to be critical of our art, in a way that makes the public harder to beguile and the art itself better.

At the same time, the study of the humanities, properly done, broadens the range of reference points beyond a single culture. As I hope the images that go with this essay show, when I say the humanities, I do not simply mean the study of the same few dozen European ‘great books.’ By no means am I throwing the western ‘canon’ out, but it is not the whole of the humanities. That in turn can provide a means of training the ability, however dimly, to ‘see’ through the eyes of other cultures (and in other languages, of course); the geopolitical benefits of having people trained this way, prepared with a wide range of cultural reference points from many times and places, should be obvious.

I think the impact that the academic humanities have on that process is often obscured by the intermediate layers that this knowledge passes through. Of course a great many cultural creators do not immerse themselves in four-year humanities degrees (although quite a number do, and it certainly seems to me that most writers, artists and musicians are quite open that the quality of their own art is dependent on sampling the art of other great creators, past and present, which would not exist in accessible form without the academic humanities or their public siblings). Rather, the study of the humanities creates a certain level of diffused knowledge in the society that is available to everyone. It is sufficiently diffused that it is often supposed that we might do as well without its source, but that is a mistake of understanding. I do not stand next to my A/C to get cool (because it cools my whole apartment, albeit less evenly than I might like), but if I turn it off, things will surely get warmer! Likewise, if you disassemble the academic and public humanities, you will quickly find that their beneficial influence on even the art produced beyond their borders wanes, to the detriment of the final product and the culture at large. And yet that diffusion makes the case for the humanities more difficult because it takes training in the humanities, sometimes, to see the influence of the humanities in the broader culture.

In the meantime, it seems to me no accident that as the funding for the humanities, and the social importance placed on a broad humanistic education, has dwindled, it has produced a matching decline in the richness of our cultural products that at this point has been broadly noticed: more and more sequels or remakes of things that aren’t even very old yet; the same handful of properties and themes flogged to death with precious little in the way of innovation. The reference pool has grown small and stagnant, even as every library in the country has an unplumbably deep well of rich ideas, just waiting to be discovered, if we only got back to teaching ourselves how to fathom those depths.

The frustration I most often encounter – particularly from students coming from high schools that too often ‘teach to the test’ instead of teaching skills – is in the apparently round-about way that the humanities teaches these things. Why not shovel money directly into Hollywood and a handful of ‘leadership institutes’? But – and I apologize, because I am going to adapt a phrasing I saw from someone else but can no longer find – that is the equivalent of the student arriving to class asking to “just be told the answers.” The point was never the answers, but the skills you gained finding them .

Leadership courses can reduce some of these ideas to basic maxims – good for what it is; maxims can be very helpful – but they cannot teach you how to discover new maxims . They cannot prepare you for a situation where you find that all of your old maxims are useless because the culture you are in or the people you are now leading do not value a ‘firm handshake’ or ‘strong eye-contact,’ to use one example. Maxims are rigid; the world demands flexibility . And there is no short-cut but to practice reasoning and argumentation, over and over again, in one unfamiliar discipline, one unfamiliar cultural sphere after another (which, of course, in turn necessitates teaching by individuals who are hyper-specialized in those disciplines and cultural spheres, not because humanist academics are the best leaders – note how the skills to teach are not the same skills as to practice . One of these days, we will discuss the art of teaching a bit; suffice to say the old canard ‘those that cannot do, teach’ is rubbish. Few who do can teach , but most who teach can do; they are different skills, only infrequently found together).

And at the moment, particularly, it seems to me that those sort of leadership skills – calm, sound reasoning, careful explanations, epistemic humility and compassion – are in short supply. As I write this – future readers, note the date – we are still in the grip of a global pandemic. What we see is not a failure of our science – by no means! We have clearly gotten our money’s worth from our doctors and scientists who continue to do heroic work. Researchers are breaking one vaccine speed record after another. The speed with which new medical methods and data are brought to bear on the viral enemy is astoundingly fast. But so far, that work hasn’t had the impact it could have had because of leadership failures – failures to buy the scientists the time they need to do their work, to get the public to follow best practices.

Our knowledge of science hasn’t failed – our knowledge of humanity has. And can it be any surprise? Since the 1950s, the humanities – particularly the academic humanities that teach the skills I have been talking about – have faced cuts not only in the United States but around the globe, over and over again. What is happening as a result is that the humanities are collapsing back into what they were in the ancient world: a marker or elite status and privilege, available to those born to wealth .

Which is a real problem, because it isn’t enough for this to be a skill-set held only by a tiny class of designated, hereditary ‘leaders.’ Rather, it behooves us for the humanistic skills to be broadly distributed in society, so that they are widely available. In the same way that I discussed above, where an artist might benefit from the broad array of influences in the humanities without having done a four-year-degree themselves – through their proximity to others who have – society benefits broadly by having skills in the humanities widely diffused. After all, you need someone in the lab to ask if we should, not merely if we can (it is striking, in that scene, that this observation is given to Ian Malcolm, a mathematician, rather than an ethicist or a historian or someone else whose knowledge actually bears on the question of should ; this is Hollywood’s fetishism of scientific knowledge at work. For exhibit B, notice how even the officers in Star Trek: The Next Generation have their training in science rather than in leadership , like real officers do (the Kirk era knew better!) – the only actual knowledge treated as such in TNG is generally scientific knowledge). You need people at every level of business and government who can ask larger questions and seek greater answers in places where science is unable to shed light. It does no good to silo those skills away to a select, elite few.

The most pressing problems that we face are not scientific problems . That is not because science has failed, but rather because it has succeeded – it has given us the answers . It has told us about the climate, given us the power of the atom, the ability to create vaccines and vast , vast productive potential. It has taken us beyond the bounds of our tiny, vast planet. What is left is the human component, which we continue to neglect, underfund, and undervalue. We look for scientific solutions to humanistic problems (where our forebears, it must be confessed, often looked for humanistic solutions to scientific problems) and wonder why our wizards fail us. We have all of the knowledge in the world and yet no wisdom.

We would do well to go back to the humanities.

Published by Bret Devereaux

View all posts by Bret Devereaux

297 thoughts on “ Collections: The Practical Case on Why We Need the Humanities ”

Pingback: Collections: How Your History Gets Made – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

Specifically in regards to Star Trek, I will note that yes, in the original series, officers are trained in ‘leadership,’ while the training seems to emphasize science more in later series from the 1980s and on.

With that said… It is true that Picard, as a character, may not have had to pass humanities classes to get the Starfleet Academy degree that launched his officer career in-setting. But he is plainly a cultured *man.* He displays deep moral reasoning, he is passionate about and respectful of the arts, he has a strong sense of where his own species stands in the universe and his vision of where it is going- that is to say, a sense of history. So even if he is only formally trained in the sciences, he cannot be imagined as the product of *only* an education in the sciences. Somewhere along the way, he soaked up a lot of the humanities, even if only indirectly.

But then look at later Star Trek captains- Janeway and Archer. Here we see a considerable amount of decay in their depiction. More superficial moral reasoning, respect for the arts that seems more performative and pro forma at least in my opinion. And, at least aboard Janeway’s USS Voyager, there is no real sense that the activities of the ship fit into a broader historical narrative of which the officers are aware. The ship’s mission is purely about survival and travel, not about “why are we out here.”

So we can view this as a sort of progressive shift, the de-humanitization, if you will, of the Starfleet officer. The captain evolving from a rounded figure who may not know as much science as the science officer or engineering as the chief engineer, but whose grasp of an alien culture or ability to make strategic decisions is enhanced by a sense of history and philosophy… Down to an ascended version of (again) the engineer or science officer. Indeed, Janeway IS the science officer of her own ship; the command-track officers are killed in the first episode and Janeway takes command by stepping into the shoes of the dead.

I’m afraid you betray your lack of ST lore. Janeway was the captain of Voyager from the get go. You’ve relied on false memory for your argument. However, regardless of the nitty-gritty problem of getting the details wrong, I think that your passion for humanities has occluded your perspective, which has failed to take into account evidence that contradicts your argument.

Take C. P. Snow’s 1959 Rede Lecture, The Two Cultures as a jumping off point.

Snow discusses humanities versus STEM problem, and in particular the way each perceives the world and the growing divide where one side is unable to comprehend what the other side says. His argument being that the political and social elites are no longer taught science and technology, which effectively makes them modern day Luddites opposed to industrialization. Therefore they’re at a loss to cope with the changes technology is bringing.

This leads to neither side being able to comprehend the other, or finding the points of view expressed nonsensical to their ears; each seeing the other as deluded. ~Snow argues that this leads to the rich failing to comprehend science and technology, while the poor treat science and technology as things equivalent to magic: beyond their comprehension and understanding.

However, the poor experience the benefits that science and technology bring, and are affected by the social changes arising in a visceral way that the rich are insulated from by their wealth.

In short, the rich live their lives with values derived from an arts and literary education where social change is slow. Whereas the poor have to contend with both the benefits and costs from a rapidly changing cultural milieu. Snow argues these social changes will divide populations, and the only thing that can address the problem is better education with a greater emphasis on science.

Therefore, it could be argued the future is not about machines or the advancement science, but rather information about the most valuable of resources, ourselves and what makes us tick.

However, if we are to do this, then we have to embrace the scientific method, put facts before feelings and develop theories that account for our natures, rather than mythologizing the human condition based on beliefs held onto through faith. I’ve said elsewhere on your lovely blog, that unfortunately facts don’t change peoples opinions.

Caveat: T&CA, E&OE; because most people are concrete operational thinkers, and those who develop abstract formal thinking are only able to do so within specific parameters of their specialist training (Piaget).

Arguably, no matter where you go in this world, ultimately people are just people trying to get along..

Coming back to this much later, I freely admit I misremembered details about Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager and its pilot episode. I was, quite simply, wrong . There are reasons I misremembered such an important set of details in that particular context, and I can find them in hindsight, but the reasons are ultimately irrelevant. I goofed.

More broadly, though, I don’t think I’m wrong in the broader observation about Star Trek , which is that Picard represents something of a high water mark for the franchise in terms of the idea that a Starfleet officer’s aspiration should be towards culture, philosophy, and history of the Federation and those it encounters, as much as to technology and the physicality of space.

To be fully fair to Star Trek , it’s tricky to come up with a convincing three-dimensional character who’s more cultured than Picard without being entirely focused on culture to the exclusion of other activities. One would face similar troubles creating a successor character noticeably braver than Worf or more compassionate than Counselor Troi from the same series. Picard is a tough act to follow in some ways. Note that confronted with a similar problem in TNG itself (“how do we follow Kirk’s act”), the creators quite sensibly didn’t try. They created Picard, who’s a respectable captain but so different from Kirk that neither can be seen as a lesser version of the other, and Riker, who’s a bit more like a lesser Kirk, but who also has the less “spotlight” role of first officer and so can afford to be a little less impressive than another series’ captain.

And to be further fair, I don’t feel qualified at all to comment on the most recent Star Trek series that have come out ( Discovery, Lower Decks while we’re at it, and most notably for what I’m saying, Picard ).

As regards the general thesis of the post I’m replying to, about broader historical trends, I would note that Snow was presenting The Two Cultures in 1959. Of necessity, he was referencing back to social trends observed in the 1950s and earlier, and within the context of specifically the British class system he’d grown up with and lived his adult life in. After all, Charles Percy Snow, recently created Baron Snow as of the time of his speech, was born in 1905, in a world very different from the one we now occupy.

To him, the problem of the Victorian-era focus on a very specific and stilted type of humanities education (poetry memorization, Greek and Latin for everyone, and the sort of inapplicable cramming-focused education memorably mocked in I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major General ) carrying over into the education of the then-dominant elites of Great Britain (most of whom would have been born during or before the First World War at the time) and leading them to ignore the advances created by “rude mechanicals” must have seemed very real.

We don’t live in his world anymore.

I would argue that whatever may have been the case in Britain c. 1930-1960, in America c. 1990-2020, and in many other parts of the developed world, the problem has changed. The trouble is not that the “classical” elites with their humanities education have walled out the scientists, and merely educating the public in science more fully is not enough to address the matter. I would argue that on the contrary, the problem is that elites whose education focuses almost entirely around law and business management have pushed aside both the humanities and the sciences, except insofar as the sciences can be used to make money.

“Aside from my profound uncertainty as to the accuracy of this claim”

Not to mention many of the riots were sparked by police misbehavior on the spot. When police behaved themselves, so did protesters.

> Within the context of American history, it is fairly close to true to say “only blacks were enslaved.”

Or if you want to get complicated, there’s Indian slavery. Charles Mann says early South Carolina exported lots of Indians as slaves to work in Caribbean islands. Not to mention forced labor through the Spanish Americas, from Columbus to California missions. Supply didn’t keep up though, thus the turn to Africans. (Who brought malaria and yellow fever to the Americas, inadvertently increasing their own relative advantage as laborers, since they had more immunity than anyone else.)

>What a student in these classes is – or at least, ought to be – doing is practicing a form of considered decision-making: assessing the evidence in a way that banishes emotion and relies on reason (which is why we encourage students to write plainly and clearly, without too much rhetorical flourish), and then explaining that reasoning and evidence to a third partly clearly and convincingly.

>What is being taught here is thus a detached, careful form of analysis and decision-making and then a set of communication skills to present that information.

Just to clarify here, are you saying this is something that is the product of studying the humanities, but not a product of non-humanities courses?

If not, then this point boils down to ‘humanities courses also offer SOME of the benefits of stem courses’, which seems like a pretty thin argument in defense of their continued funding.

If, on the other hand, you’re saying that STEMs do not involve careful, impartial and detached analysis based on data, and then communicating the information to others in a precise understandable way, then you’ve defined STEM topics so narrowly as to exclude research publications. All scientific research is a conversation.

>In the meantime, it seems to me no accident that as the funding for the humanities, and the social importance placed on a broad humanistic education, has dwindled, it has produced a matching decline in the richness of our cultural products that at this point has been broadly noticed: more and more sequels or remakes of things that aren’t even very old yet; the same handful of properties and themes flogged to death with precious little in the way of innovation.

This is a pretty weak argument as well; look at 1920’s cinema and you’ll see tons of sequels and adaptations, to the point where even contemporary newspaper comics have numerous complaints about the plague of poor adaptations. So cinema, at least, has always done it. Go back a century further, and stories that were popular with the general public, like “Varney the Vampire” don’t reflect any sort of lost cultural era of literary innovation.

You say the sequel/remake problems started happening in the 1950’s, though. Over the course of 1935-1948, Universal put out SEVEN sequels to Frankenstein (which was, of course, an adaptation of the play from four years earlier, which was itself an adaptation).

But, as you’re the one touting that reasoning based on evidence is the benefit of the humanties education you received, I’d love to see your work. I assume you’ve put your money where your mouth is and have done an actual analysis rather than going off your ‘gut feeling’?

Overall, however, the biggest issue I have is that your post – as such – is structured with the implicit assumption that people with scientific training should be ruled over by those without. You either state, or heavily imply, that mathematicians are incapable of making ethical decisions, that scientists are incapable of asking bigger questions, and that the problem with our covid response is not that the people organizing this scientific project are scientifically illiterate, but that the *wrong* scientifically illiterate people are in charge.

The critical distinction here isn’t between people educated in STEM fields and people educated in the humanities. It’s between people educated in the humanities and people not.

The average physicist has more training in the humanities than the average non-physicist, after all. And the average sociologist has more training in STEM fields than the average non-sociologist. Most people are not any kind of academic.

People, including scientists, are going to be ruled over by some group of people. And it’ll be better for everyone if that group is well-versed in history, sociology, law, economics, philosophy, and language. So the humanities are necessary.

Though it is worth noting that some of the stuff a leader should know is generally considered STEM. Statistics and environmental science, notably.

I notice that you said “data” whereas Bret said “evidence”. Data is a kind of evidence, of course, but it’s not the only kind, nor does a facility with handling data equate to facility with handling other kinds of evidence.

I’ve wondered how much history might have changed if someone had the idea of representative democracy back in ‘ancient’ times. Seems to me that they didn’t have an idea of something that could scale the way the early US did — spanning 800×1000 miles with no communication better than the printing press and maybe the occasional pigeon. (I.e. well before the railroad or electric telegraph or even the US pony express.)

“political decisions have to be made by a smaller group of people.”

With a large population, the deliberation and detailed decisions have to be made by a small group; the people at large can still approve or strike down proposed decisions once spelled out. Modern Switzerland uses this: a conventional legislature writes laws, but it can be put to popular referendum within a few months if enough people object. I’ve often imagined a system where changes to the criminal or tax laws automatically have to go to referendum.

Pingback: Fireside Friday, August 28, 2020 – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
Pingback: Fireside Friday, October 30, 2020 – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
Pingback: Fireside Friday: January 1, 2021 – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

Faith in Humanities restored! Very compelling post, which shows what it says by doing it.

Pingback: Collections: The Universal Warrior, Part III: The Cult of the Badass – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

>the study of the humanities creates a certain level of diffused knowledge in the society that is available to everyone.

You go on to and talk about Rock&Roll and Hollywood. How they made the Soviet Union collapse. These are greatly limited by copyright law, itself an extension of patent law. The idea behind patent law was that it would grant an inventor a period of exclusive use, and later it would expire and it would enrich public domain.

It is now common for copyright to last 70 years after the death of the writer or artist. And that can be extended on a case by case basis. It is often enough to make a work irrelevant. Lord of the Rings was first published in 1954, 67 years ago! LOTR is copyrighted. Peter Jackson’s movies are copyrighted.

The bulk of popular culture, the de facto culture, is not Homer, Machiavelli, Chopin, or even Tom Sawyer. It’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Kanye West, Home Alone, Die Hard, The Witcher, Spiderman, Dr House or Call of Duty. They’re overwhelmingly patented. There’s no common culture. There are cultures and bubbles.

STEM inventors have it easy as they can literally show an invention used by everyone or by a few important people and explain their working principles. They’re tangible. Humanities ‘inventions’ each require an essay to defend. Besides, we live in a post-truth, post-expert era. Anyone can claim anything on the internet, especially if you have a charismatic personality. On youtube, to a regular joe, anti-vaccer looks just as good as a person highly educated in humanities. We can spend hours arguing how much merit there is in Jordan Peterson’s lectures or how much he uses word salad tactic, using language to distance, intimidate and confuse instead of bridging gaps and illuminating. There’s no straightforward (like a mechanical device) way to test which parts of Peterson’s lectures are valuable. Mechanical contraptions can be taken apart into their base mechanisms. You can’t trivially take Rashomon apart and get Citizen Kane. Wise leaders might benefit from illuminating classic works, but that’s hard and time-consuming to prove to a simple citizen.

People aren’t even interested in facts (knowledge) much anymore. They’re happy with opinions. The more radical and emotional, the better.

Pingback: Meet a Historian: Michael Taylor on Why We Need Classics – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
Pingback: Collections: So You Want To Go To Grad School (in the Academic Humanities)? – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

I agree that the typical justification for the humanities is not solid. I wonder if there is value in tracing the genealogy of that justification, because it answers the question “Why should you study the humanities?” not “Why should society value the humanities?” The common justification has a little moralizing in it – you should study humanities because it is a morally good thing to do so. But I wonder if that is because it is the Western Tradition [of the elite], and at the time it was created, it was an essential part of being a good elite. Hence the idea that it is a moral necessity. I think Bret correctly identified that it is not a sufficient justification for society valuing (and government funding of) the humanities.

Corollary: Many historical rulers were smart. Most historical rulers studied humanities. Many smart historical rulers emphasized the study of humanities (as part of my hypothesis above regarding it being a moral good for elites). Thus, there is some good reason to think that humanities have value for rulers. If so, we should educate the rulers of America in humanities. Who are the rulers in a democracy?

I think it’s absolutely critical to address your responses to the actual question asked, and I appreciate Bret making a solid case for actually funding humanities.

Let me make another case, possibly in a similar vein. My background: I went to a liberal arts college, but got degrees in mathematics and biochemistry. However, a couple years out from college, I now work for a major consulting firm.

What does America value? What defines our culture? No moral judgement here, but America is about money. Everything is America is about money. (I had another comment about the driving factor behind movie construction in Hollywood being money, but it was too long so I cut it). I guess I can justify this statement if somebody wants me to, but I honestly feel like it doesn’t need justification. If I’m wrong, let me have it.

Money in America flows to the most valued members of society. I know what you’re thinking: “Programmers! Engineers! Essentially STEM people.” No, it’s their managers. It’s always the managers who get paid. Programmers and Engineers get paid more than most other workers, but managers are the largest people group who makes serious amounts of money. Obviously tech company founders tend to amass enormous assets, but (1) They are a very select group of people, and (2) They usually stop programming and start managing pretty fast. I don’t even think companies are very good at identifying good managers (Although I’m pretty sure most research has indicated that managers with good people skills pretty generally enhances team performance). But they do recognize that managing people is a more valuable skill than technical ability. On the same note, it always amazes me the ridiculous amount money that consulting companies bring in for having so much less technical ability than the big tech companies. My guess is that much of it is based on strong communication and people skills that make clients comfortable with our technology, more so than it is based on superiority of our technology.

The point here is that people are convinced to spend money, not by technology, but rather by techniques designed to appeal to people. No matter how fancy the technological edifices we construct are, they’re still pretty generally all about people. (Facebook and Google run ad networks based on monetizing people’s preferences!)

I feel like I am missing a logical step here, but I think the implication is that if we want any individual person to succeed in attracting money in America, we need that person to understand people. At least in theory, if we want the whole community of Americans to succeed, we need the whole community of Americans to understand people. I think what Bret has pointed out, again and again, is just how radically different, and how constantly the same people are, and how much we need to directly study these samenesses and differences in order to actually understand people.

(I have further thoughts on how STEM will fail to do this – I think businesses in America are a great place to look for the inability of academic STEM to grasp the world with the totality that it typically desires, but this comment is way too long already)

Patricia Crone in Pre-Industrial Societies talked about education in elite culture being a way to keep the elite as a coherent elite, despite being thinly spread over a diversity of peasants. Then you can have mass education as part of a nationalist program, to make a ‘nation’ out of the masses. But if your core value is pluralism then it’s hard to tell everyone to read the same books, unless you can do that as part of inculcating the value of pluralism… Or things like democracy; I’ve headcanoned that Bujold’s Beta Colony has a strong education in “why democracy is good” (pointing to things like accountability and Condorcet’s Jury Theorem, not just moralizing) and “how democracies have failed”, along with education in marketing techniques (to inoculate people against them), cognitive biases, etc.

First of all, great post and great blog.

I think 21st century American politics cries out for better humanities education. We see a lot of disadvantaged (by technology, globalization, capitalist system etc.) people unaible to channel their political interests through existing structures and politicians and “thought leaders” unable to find a reasonable approach to meet those needs. 2020 elections and especially what followed is just a symptom, but the one that should have been taken seriously and yet everything is primitivized to bad Trump and treasonous rioters.

It doesn’t mean that the current academic structure is fit for the purpose. The non-humanities solution is to make some semi-random clear break and solve one problem by creating a hundred more. More humanities-informed approach (I am a stem person myself, mind) is to understand that institutions grow and the best way is to give them more resources and to set a clear purpose than to try to micromanage who to hire and how to teach classes.

Two more comments.

Have we absorbed the lessons of WWI? It seems that the world powers are just as capable to walk into a major war through militarism and bricksmanship as 100 years ago and just as unable to and conflicts by negotiation. If anything there is some ability to freeze conflicts (better than keep fighting!) like in the West Bank, Cyprus, Eastern Ukraine. Some smart humanitarians have to help here!

Soviet system didn’t collapse because of Hollywood and rock-n-roll. I never studied the details, but lived through it. Mainly, the majority was disappointed with low living standards as compared to Western consumerism and inability of the sklerotic system to move forward. Just like in Western Europe “socialism didn’t work”, but there was no mechanism to change it (relatively) gently.

Pingback: Fireside Friday, January 21, 2022 (On Public Scholarship) – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

I’m reminded of times, online, when people — college educated people– have said things like, “College education is valuable because it teaches critical thinking.” Usually, just that statement, nothing else supporting it. Which makes the statement ironic, because by failing to provide any evidence for their claim that college improves faculties for critical thought, they are demonstrating the exact opposite of their claim: by making explanations without reason, without evidence, they are showing that they themselves have some significant deficits in critical reasoning.

We see assertions like that throughout this argument. That education in the humanities improves leadership ability over education in other domains or no formal education at all. Where is the evidence?

I don’t agree that humanities and science are inherently different domains, that they use different kinds of evidence, etc. Science has regularly had to use qualitative evidence, as for the identification of Saturn’s rings. As in history, science uses the best kind of evidence it can muster. Where that evidence is not as great as we’d like, which comes often from limitations due to timeframe, ethics, budget, we still do what we can, understanding that we’re not saying definitively– we’re *never* saying definitively. Philosophical descriptions of the “scientific method” have been criticized for ignoring absolutely tons of science. Anthropology is an example that does not typically involve any experiments. I find it humorous that in these comments, sociology is provided as an example of the humanities, when some professors, of science *or* humanities, might take offense at that; nevertheless, I think there’s more than a grain of truth to it. There is no hard border between the sciences and the humanities.

And while our art is definitely inspired by domains studied by the humanities, that is a very different thing than claiming that art is dependent on the humanities. Absent written history, absent literacy itself, people still made art. You’ve demonstrated very well that 300 has nearly no historical basis– yet, it was still made, and it’s still good, in the sense that it’s fun, that it’s enjoyable, and that it’s inspiring, at least, to some people.

There is another defense of the humanities: they are *fun*! Do we study to live, or do we live to study? This may not be convincing to some of the rich people providing funding, but it *should* be. Knowledge, inquiry, is not just an instrument to other values. For many of us, it is a primary value, a good in and of itself. Should it come before lives? Probably not, not in my opinion (but I don’t believe that’s an objectively answerable question), but I think you’d agree with that anyways, that if we are ever making an explicit choice between people surviving and people studying history, that we should probably pick the surviving thing, regardless of the practical benefits of the study of the humanities. Yet, not all choices are between those two, at least, not explicitly.

Pingback: Fireside Friday, December 23, 2022 (W(h)ither History) – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

Thanks for this post! Certainly changed my perspective on the humanities, especially as a mathematician who often hasn’t been able to appreciate the humanities in the past.

I can’t help but think that merely funding the humanities is not enough. What most people want out of college is a better job (e.g. https://news.gallup.com/reports/226457/why-higher-ed.aspx ). And humanities are famous for not really giving good job prospects (law degrees being the exception). For the benefits you’re arguing for to come to fruition, people actually have to choose humanities. What practical jobs could the humanities train people for?

I can’t help but think the answer is already contained in this blog: content creator. Why couldn’t humanities majors train people to be YouTubers, and bloggers, and podcasters, and influencers? Heck, the humanities already trains people to be authors and essayists. But pamphlets and books are no longer the dominant medium of communication. So perhaps the humanities also need to adapt.

History majors actually already do fine in the broader economy – the idea that humanities degrees don’t have good job prospects is a myth. See: https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/why-study-history/careers-for-history-majors/what-can-you-do-with-that-history-degree and https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/april-2017/history-is-not-a-useless-major-fighting-myths-with-data

With respect, my graduating class (2009) fared very poorly and humanities majors took the brunt of the unemployment and underemployment, with engineers and economics majors weathering the storm. Those who doubled down and went on to pursue a PhD in a humanities discipline, reasoning that the job market would improve by the time they graduated, instead faced a collapsing academic job market by the time they completed their doctorates. Those who braved years of underemployment to carve out some sort of niche generally did better than those who had chosen the PhD route.

I studied history and found it immensely fulfilling. My fiancée studied philosophy. We are now both software engineers, her by way of a masters degree and myself by way of self study. It is undoubtedly true that our humanities backgrounds aid our careers in small ways, yet this is insufficient to justify them, because our careers would not be possible with a humanities degree alone. An undergraduate degree is an immense investment and it is reasonable to expect a return on that investment. Given the staggering costs of higher education, assessing a field of study on the basis of whether its graduates are able to achieve any gainful employment at all is wholly inadequate.

Several of my friends who have backgrounds in the humanities, including graduate degrees, subsequently transitioned to software engineering and found the first stable, well paid work with good benefits in their careers through doing so. The foreign language and research skills they acquired through their academic training have little bearing on their present employment.

I continue to read academic history today; I even audited Timothy Snyder’s survey course on the history of Ukraine last fall, doing all of the reading (several books!) and watching all of the lectures. I also continue to pursue several of my other undergraduate interests, such as rock climbing and hiking. I find all of these activities enriching and worthwhile. None of these things pay the bills, however. Knowledge of Python, Rust, and Linux do so.

I support funding the humanities as a matter of policy, because I think exposure to the humanities (history in particular) is critical to fostering the sort of informed critical thinking that is imperative in a democracy and because the production of valuable scholarship requires academic infrastructure and support. That said, if someone asked me whether they should major in a humanities discipline as an undergraduate, I would simply say: don’t do it. It pains me to say this, but I think it needs to be said.

May 22, 2024

published by phi beta kappa

Print or web publication, why we need the humanities.

The word itself contains the answer

Nagasaki on September 24, 1945, six weeks after the city was destroyed by American atom bomb (Lynn P. Walker, Jr./Wikimedia Commons)

A little over five years ago, a pair of huge, exquisitely crafted L-shaped antennas in Louisiana and Washington State picked up the chirping echo of two black holes colliding in space a billion years ago—and a billion light years away. In that echo, astrophysicists found proof of Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves—at a cost of more than $1 billion. If you ask why we needed this information, what was the use of it, you might as well ask—as Ben Franklin once did—“what is the use of a newborn baby?” Like a newborn’s potential, the value of a scientific discovery is limitless. It cannot be calculated, and it needs no justification.

But the humanities do. Once upon a time, no one asked why we needed to study the humanities because their value was considered self-evident, just like the value of scientific discovery. Now these two values have sharply diverged. Given the staggering cost of a four-year college education, which now exceeds $300,000 at institutions like Dartmouth College (where I taught for nearly 40 years), how can we justify the study of subjects such as literature? The Summer 2021 newsletter of the Modern Language Association reports a troubling statistic about American colleges and universities: from 2009 to 2019, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees awarded in modern languages and literature has plunged by 29 percent. “Where Have All the Majors Gone?” asks the article. But here’s a more pragmatic question: what sort of dividends does the study of literature pay, out there in the real world?

Right now, the readiest answer to this question is that it stretches the mind by exposing it to many different perspectives and thus prepares the student for what is widely thought to be the most exciting job of our time: entrepreneurship. In William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the story of how a rural Mississippi family comes to bury its matriarch is told from 15 points of view. To study such a novel is to be forced to reckon with perspectives that are not just different but radically contradictory, and thus to develop the kind of adaptability that it takes to succeed in business, where the budding entrepreneur must learn how to satisfy customers with various needs and where he or she must also be ever ready to adapt to changing needs and changing times.

But there’s a big problem with this way of justifying the study of literature. If all you want is entrepreneurial adaptability, you can probably gain it much more efficiently by going to business school. You don’t need a novel by Faulkner—or anyone else.

Nevertheless, you could argue that literature exemplifies writing at its best, and thus trains students how to communicate in something other than tweets and text messages. To study literature is not just to see the rules of grammar at work but to discover such things as the symmetry of parallel structure and the concentrated burst of metaphor: two prime instruments of organization. Henry Adams once wrote that “nothing in education is more astonishing than the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.” Literature shows us how to animate facts, and still more how to make them cooperate, to work and dance together toward revelation.

Yet literature can be highly complex. Given its complexity, given all the ways in which poems, plays, and novels resist as well as provoke our desire to know what they mean, the study of literature once again invites the charge of inefficiency. If you just want to know how to make the written word get you a job, make you a sale, or charm a venture capitalist, you don’t need to study the gnomic verses of Emily Dickinson or the intricate ironies of Jonathan Swift. All you need is a good textbook on writing and plenty of practice.

Why then do we really need literature? Traditionally, it is said to teach us moral lessons, prompting us to seek “the moral of the story.” But moral lessons can be hard to extract from any work of literature that aims to tell the truth about human experience—as, for instance, Shakespeare does in King Lear . In one scene of that play, a foolish but kindly old man has his eyes gouged out. And at the end of the play, what happens to the loving, devoted, long-suffering Cordelia—the daughter whom Lear banishes in the first act? She dies, along with the old king himself. So even though all the villains in the play are finally punished by death, it is not easy to say why Cordelia too must die, or what the moral of her death might be.

Joseph Conrad once declared that his chief aim as a novelist was to make us see. Like Shakespeare, he aimed to make us recognize and reckon with one of the great contradictions of humanity: that only human beings can be inhumane. Only human beings take children from their parents and lock them in cages, as American Border Patrol agents did to Central American children two years ago; only human beings burn people alive, as ISIS has done in our own time; only human beings use young girls as suicide bombers, as Boko Haram did 44 times in one recent year alone.

As a refuge from such horrors, literature can offer us visions or at least glimpses of beauty, harmony, and love. They are part of what Seamus Heaney called “the redress of poetry”—compensation for the misery, cruelty, and brutality that human beings ceaselessly inflict on one another. But literature at its most powerful is never just a balloon ride to fantasy, a trip to the moon on gossamer wings. Rather than taking flight from our inhumanity, great literature confronts it even while somehow keeping alive its faith in our humanity. What is the moral of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved , the story of a formerly enslaved Black woman who killed her own infant daughter to spare her from a life of slavery and sexual exploitation? In a world of merciless inhumanity, can infanticide become an expression of love?

This is the kind of question literature insists on asking. At the heart of the humanities lies humanity, which stubbornly insists on measuring everything in terms of its impact on human life. Seventy-six years ago, J. Robert Oppenheimer midwifed the birth of the most destructive weapon the world had ever seen—a weapon that made America invincible, ended World War II, and saved countless American lives. But the atomic bombs that America dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki incinerated more than 200,000 men, women, and children. That is why Oppenheimer said afterward: “In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.”

In saying this, Oppenheimer was not just radically unscientific. He was potentially treasonous, disloyal to a government bent on military supremacy above all else. Refusing to join the next heat in the arms race, the development of the hydrogen bomb, Oppenheimer lost his security clearance and spent the rest of his life under a cloud of suspicion.

But his response to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrates the kind of humanity that the humanities aim to nurture. We need this humanity now more than ever, when the diabolical cruelty of terrorism is compounded by the destructiveness of our very own drone strikes, which too often hit not only the guilty but also the innocent—the victims of “collateral damage,” the human life we sacrifice to our military ends.

We need literature to bear witness to such sacrifices—the lives we take and also the minds we deform in the process of making war. One of those minds is portrayed in a book called Redeployment , a collection of stories about American soldiers in Iraq written by Phil Klay, a veteran U.S. Marine officer. In one of his stories, a lance corporal says to a chaplain, “The only thing I want to do is kill Iraqis. That’s it. Everything else is just, numb it until you can do something. Killing hajjis is the only thing that feels like doing something. Not just wasting time.”

Where is the humanity here? This soldier has just enough left to realize that he has been weaponized, turned into a killing machine. Literature thus strives to speak both for and to whatever shred of humanity may survive the worst of our ordeals. In The Plague , a novel he wrote during the Second World War, Albert Camus symbolically portrays the war as a bubonic plague striking an Algerian city. The story is told by a doctor who struggles—often in vain—to save all the lives he can, though hundreds of men, women, and children will die before the plague has run its course. In the end, he says, this tale records what had to be done and what must be “done again in the never-ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts.”

If these words seem uncannily resonant for our time, consider what the doctor says about how the fight against terror must be waged. “Despite their personal afflictions,” he says, it must be waged “by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.”

Having spent trillions of dollars fighting terrorism with bullets and bombs, we need literature and the humanities now more than ever, because they strive to heal, to nurture the most priceless of all our possessions: our humanity.

James A. W. Heffernan , an emeritus professor of English at Dartmouth College, is the author of Hospitality and Treachery in Western Literature (2014) and other books. His Flashpoint: Politics and Literature at the Dawn of World War II will appear next year.

● NEWSLETTER

Why study humanities?

Professorial Fellow, Faculty of Arts and the Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne

Disclosure statement

Raimond Gaita does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

This is a revised excerpt of a talk given to students at the Inaugural Australian Youth Humanities Forum, hosted at the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus.

After two days at this fine conference, you will know more than I could tell you about the humanities - about which disciplines usually go under that heading, and all you can and can’t do with a degree in the humanities. So I won’t talk about such things, or about how a degree in the humanities might help or hinder your career opportunities. I have little to offer on that last, important, concern. My experience has been very different from what yours is likely to be, in large part because I didn’t have to work for money as a student, except during the holidays.

Also I have been extraordinarily lucky at every stage of my life, from primary school, through my years at King’s College University of London until now in my present appointment at my alma mater, the University of Melbourne. I’m glad to be able to call this university my alma mater, drawing on the affectionate resonances of that expression, because I received a wonderful education here as an undergraduate in the mid to late ‘60s. A sense of the public responsibilities of academics was strong at the university at the time.

In the letter of invitation to speak today I was asked to tell you what role an education in the humanities has played in my engagement in public life. In keeping with that request, I’ll speak personally. I’m a philosopher, so I will tell you a little about what philosophy means to me and the role it has played in my life – in my life as an academic, my life as a “public intellectual” (I hate that expression) and, differently from both, my experience as the author of Romulus My Father , an elegy to my father that was made into a film starring Eric Bana and the miraculous Kodi Smit-McPhee. Some of you will have studied the book at school.

In 1989 Robert Manne asked me to write a column for Quadrant, a magazine of politics and culture that he was then editing. I wrote more than 50 columns, each approximately 2,200 words long. In them, I reflected, in the context of political life and public life more generally, on ideas developed in Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception , which was directed primarily to an academic audience. Most of my book A Common Humanity: Thinking about Love and Truth and Justice , first published in 1999, draws on material from those columns.

In them – and in much else I have written - I was not just applying ideas developed in a theoretical, academic context to a more practical, public one. Rather, I was rethinking those ideas in the context of public life, always mindful that though most of my readers would not be philosophers, they were, I assumed, educated people who knew how hard it is to think seriously about most things that matter in life. Indeed, the most important lesson I try to teach my students is just how hard it is to think seriously, which means, really, to think at all in the sense we try to convey when we say with exasperation, “For God’s sake, think!”. One needs more than brainpower. Among other things, one also needs humility, courage and a deep spirit of truthfulness.

To explain some of what I attempted to do in those columns and in later writings, I will restrict myself to one example. In two columns written at greater length than usual, I wrote a qualified defence of the allegation in Bringing Them Home , the report on the stolen generations, that the crime against the children who bear that name is rightly called genocide. My argument was directed primarily to (please note “to” rather than “against”) those who believed such an allegation is absurd and offensive because the Holocaust is our paradigm of genocide. Those two columns proved highly controversial. They ended my time at Quadrant and contributed to the end of Robert Manne’s editorship.

It is a remarkable fact that 63 years after genocide was established as a crime in international law, people still argue about what it is. Disagreement about this is radical and sometimes bitter. Contributions to that debate won’t be worth much unless they are thoughtful about what it means to be rooted in a particular community.

To think about that is to think about the importance to peoples of their natural language, their history, their poetry and their song. Such thought is deepest, I believe, when it is steeped in the humanities, even when it goes beyond them, as anthropology does, for example. A sensibility nourished by the humanities enabled the great Australian anthropologist W H Stanner to see in the culture of Australia’s indigenous peoples “all the beauty of song, mime, dance and art of which human beings are capable”.

The discovery by many of the Western intelligentsia of moral or spiritual depth in practices and beliefs that had previously seemed to express only the superstitions of scientifically backward savages is an achievement of the latter half of the 20th century for which we must thankful. It amounted to a new capacity to see (as Stanner saw) in black cultures an ever-deepening responsiveness to the defining facts of the human condition – our mortality, our sexuality, our vulnerability to misfortune – and therefore to see them as cultures from which the West could learn.

I shall now change tack a little because I want to talk about Socrates. Or, more accurately, I’ll talk about the character Socrates in the dialogues of the great philosopher-poet Plato. Plato was a disciple of the historical Socrates, the philosopher who lived in Athens over 2500 years ago. He was troubled by what he called “the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy”.

Many people think Plato believed that he had resolved that quarrel in favour of philosophy. In Republic, he banned poets from the ideal state. But if that expressed his final, untroubled opinion, he could not have produced the great works of art that are his dialogues and given us Socrates, fully realised as a character rather than a mouthpiece for philosophical arguments. It is the character who has haunted the Western moral and political imagination, reflection about what it means to live the life of the mind and, more generally, on why we must strive for lucidity about the meanings of what we do, think and feel.

I belong to a relatively small group of philosophers who believe that moral and political philosophy become sterile when they do not engage creatively with art, especially with literature. The form of my work as much as – indeed inseparably from - its content has expressed that belief. The English philosopher Roger Scruton described The Philosopher’s Dog as an experiment in narrative philosophy. The same could be said of After Romulus . But though I have emphasised in my academic and other work, and many times in more public fora, that philosophy is impoverished when its conception of what it is to think rigorously does not include a sensibility nourished by art, I have also stressed that art speaks to us only because it draws upon the background of a common understanding.

Obviously the discursive disciplines of the humanities contribute to that common understanding. Just as importantly, they play an indispensable role in clarifying its conceptual character. And it is the humanities, reflecting critically about the Holocaust and the brutalities of colonialism, that have probed, with sobering scepticism, the assumption that the humanities would humanise those who study them, or even make them relatively decent.

Perhaps you are already asking why I would talk to you about a philosopher who died 2500 years ago. You might think that the fact that I would even think of doing it is an example of the sterility of the humanities, evidence, indeed, that a graffitist had a point when he wrote above the paper rolls in the men’s toilets of the union of this university: “Humanities degrees. Feel free to take one.”

But to understand most of the disciplines of the humanities one needs to know that their history is not “just history”. Humanities scholars – certainly philosophers - engage critically with, and are nourished by, thinkers of the past as distant from us in time as the ancient Greeks. This has two great benefits. One is a treasure.

Firstly, reflective engagement with great thinkers and artists of the past enables one to live joyously - because one is given so much to love – in an extended continuous present. This, much more than the trappings of a reasonably successful academic career, makes me feel different from many friends who have not had the benefit of much education. Plato is my companion. So are Descartes and Kant, to name only a few great philosophers. Ditto for Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and Bach. And, of course, there are others. I could not imagine my life without them.

Secondly, critical engagement with the past helps us to establish the kind of distance from the present that is necessary if we are even seriously to try, without self-deception, to resist becoming merely children of our times, in the pejorative sense of that expression. We exist in the present and hopefully we can love the world we are born into, but the present can be tyrannical unless our consciousness of it extends a long way into the past. We can dream of the future, and those dreams can sustain our struggles for a better world, but the future does not exist and no one knows how it will be. It cannot nourish us as only something real can do.

Dictators know this, which is why they rewrite history to suit their political ends and deny their subjects independent access to their past. They do it because they know that resistance to their rule will wither unless hope is nourished by trustworthy access to the past. People who fight against oppression need to know that their ideals are not mere dreams, that they have been inspired, at least in part, by something real to which sobriety requires them to be answerable.

Rather than alienating us from the times into which we are born, the past can yield to us a timeless love of the world that will protect us from cynicism if we are unfortunate to live in circumstances to which disillusionment appears to be the only truthful response. Sometimes people live in dark times.

In Plato’s dialogue, Gorgias, Socrates says that there is “nothing more important in youth or old age, than to discuss how one should live”. Note that he says that it is important to this discuss rather than just think about it. Some people think that is just silly and self-indulgent. The important thing is to get on with one’s life: one must be practical to survive in this world, they might say. But often, when misfortune strikes - when for example they are told that they have only a short time to live, or when someone dear to them suffers or dies – the very same people reassess what is most important to them.

Everyone knows this. But, of course, often we know it only in our heads, and even then only at the top of our heads, rather than in our bones. And if we come to understand it in our heads and our bones when misfortune strikes, we are prone to forget it when we recover. That is one reason why Plato says that the philosophers – by which he means lovers of wisdom, or to put it less portentously, those who want to be lucid about what really matters as distinct from what only appears to matter – cling in recollection to what they had once known.

It is therefore hardly practical, Socrates would say, to spend a large part of our lives devoting ourselves to things that, were we not blinded or intoxicated by relative good fortune, would appear not worth the sacrifices we make for them. In Romulus, My Father , I say that for my father nothing mattered more than to live his life decently, and I add that when I say “nothing” I mean nothing. He would never contrast the demands of morality, as he understood them, with what is practical. For him, nothing could be more practical than to try to rise to those demands.

He would not accept that sober realism requires one to accept that morality is well and good in its place, but that sometimes, if one is practical, one will subdue its voice and perhaps silence it altogether. The philosophical significance of his point, as I have understood it, though he would not put it as I have done – he had only four years of schooling - is that we should resist the ubiquitous attempts to hijack the very concept of the practical to relatively narrow material ambitions and the pursuit of status or prestige.

I have, therefore, been deeply touched by the fact that many students have responded well to the book when they studied it at VCE and HSE. I had not expected it. In an age that seems to admire nothing quite so much as cool urbanity, I expected that most students would respond uneasily, perhaps with distaste, to my father’s unnerving moral intensity. I am grateful that I have been mistaken.

I hope you don’t think that what I have said about the abuse of the concept of the practical is merely a “semantic matter”, in the pejorative sense of the phrase. It has been central to most of my work about morality and its relation to law and to politics. I have resisted attempts to commandeer the concept of the practical into the service of a narrow conception of realism in national and international politics and of the public role of a university. It is important that you think about this when you ask yourself, or when you are asked, perhaps by your parents: Is it practical to study the humanities?

Socrates was tried and sentenced to death for allegedly corrupting the youth of Athens by his persistent questioning of their assumptions about morality and the place it might have in their lives. At his trial, he explained to the judges who sentenced him to death, but offered him a reprieve were he to stop philosophising, that he could not do so because, as he put it, “an unexamined life is not worthy of a human being”. That is sometimes translated as “an unexamined life is not worth living”, but I think the way I have put it is truer to his thought. Our humanity, he would say, is not given to us by virtue of belonging to a biological species; it is something we must rise to.

Often it is only in times of crisis that we realise that our humanity is a gift. We honour that gift and express our gratitude for it, by trying to be lucid about the meanings of what we do and suffer. Or, as a friend once said to me: “I try to live with my eyes open.”

I hope that I have now taken you to the point where you can see why Socrates would think that the humanities honour that gift. To enable them to do it is one of the most important of the public responsibilities of a university.

Had I time, I would explain why I would be dismayed if what I have said were taken as an attempt to revive the old war about “two cultures” – a war between the humanities and the sciences. The fundamental impact of science on our understanding of what it means to be human is undeniable. It has deepened immeasurably understanding of ourselves as creatures of the earth and as material beings in the universe.

Neuroscience has altered our understanding of the mind, and evolutionary psychology has had considerable influence on moral psychology and, through it, moral and political philosophy. Recent developments in technology have affected our lives directly in dramatic ways and altered our ways of thinking about and imagining ourselves. And just as importantly, when the natural sciences express a love of the beauty of the world – when, as Simone Weil put it, they manifest the spirit of truth in love - then as much as the humanities they offer to those engaged with them the kind of treasure of which I spoke earlier. Yet only when they are engaged with the humanities are the natural sciences able to contribute to an understanding of the human meaning of their discoveries – indeed of their meaning, period.

Romulus, My Father is a short book and it its prose is simple. I have been moved by how many people who are not at all educated have been touched by it. Yet it is a book that could only have been written by a philosopher. Indeed, I say of my father, that like Socrates, he believed that it is better to suffer evil than to do it. Perhaps not so evidently, it is written by someone whose sense of life has been shaped by Greek tragedy.

The novelist John Coetzee has written: “Gaita also clearly owes a great deal to Greece – to Greek literature even more than to Greek systematic philosophy.” He is right. In fact I say in After Romulus, published a couple of years ago, that tragedy shows a calm pity for the suffering it depicts. I say that I when I wrote Romulus, My Father I hoped that I could show the same pity towards the suffering of the people I wrote about.

The tone of Romulus, My Father is inseparable from that hope. The same is true, I think, of many of the responses to it and to the film. The suffering to which I referred was that of my mother, who killed herself at the age of 29 having suffered terribly from a mental illness, of her lover, Mitru, who killed himself two years before at the age of 27, driven to desperation by her infidelities, wild spending and incapacity to look after the child that had been born to them (all symptoms of her illness) and of my father who went mad three years later. I ask you to keep in mind those facts and the fact that the book was written by someone steeped in the humanities when I tell you a story that I first told in After Romulus.

When Romulus, My Father, was first published I read from it at a refuge for homeless people, reluctantly for I was aware that they came there for lunch, not for literature. At one stage a man, obviously mentally ill, called for me to stop. He raised his head, which he had held in his hands, and exclaimed: “God is in this book!” I remembered the times when, as a student, I worked in mental hospitals and was anxious about what he would do next. “I mean,” he explained, “that it’s filled with love.”

On that same day, five or six girls, prostitutes in the area, not one of them yet 20, asked me to read, again and again, about my mother. I read to them, passages I had not read before or have since in public because it pains me to do so. In my mother’s troubled life they saw something of their own and, I think, they saw her suffering, and what she shared with them, in the light of the love that the man who spoke before them said filled the book.

I am certain they would not repeatedly have asked me to read about my mother if they had detected in my portrayal of her what one critic called “a morally bankrupt woman”. The spiritual hunger that showed in their recognition that my mother was, like them, a deeply troubled soul, and the tribute by a man destitute of all worldly goods and achievements, bereft of all status and quite mad, moved and gratified me more than all the accolades the book and the film have received.

Senior Research Fellow - Women's Health Services

Senior Lecturer in Periodontics

Lecturer / Senior Lecturer - Marketing

Assistant Editor - 1 year cadetship

Executive Dean, Faculty of Health

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

Why Study Humanities
Humanities Careers
Virtual Tour
Meet our Instructors
Meet Our Students
Request Info

Why study Humanities?

“The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates.

As a Humanities student, you’ll bring artistic, historical, critical and philosophical reflection to bear while you explore and examine our past and present, our thought, our cultures, and societies, as well as our existence. You’ll learn about the world and learn about yourself.

Gain knowledge and learn to question.
Grapple with how to make sense of experiences, how to achieve understanding, and how to live well.
Learn how to think, inquire, weigh evidence, read critically, make arguments, write and speak thoughtfully.
Practice the skills you learn in the classroom, lab, theatre and studio through community engagement, international experience, field study and internships

Why Humanities at McMaster?

Dean Swett reflects on the top ten things that students say when we ask them “Why did you choose Humanities at Mac?”

Humanities at McMaster

Join our close-knit community in the Faculty of Humanities -- where you aren't just a number. There are lots of supports to help you succeed, both while you're in university, and beyond.

That is the power of the arts — to remind us of what we each have to offer, and what we all have in common; to help us understand our history and imagine our future; to give us hope in the moments of struggle; and to bring us together when nothing else will.

— MICHELLE OBAMA FORMER FIRST LADY, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Humanities grads are needed now more than ever. The world needs people who have these essential skills.

Think critically

Lead change

Exercise social and emotional intelligence

Communicate effectively

Think ethically and make a difference

The question isn’t "What can I do with a Humanities education?" It's "What can't I do?"

While the skills you’ll learn while you’re at McMaster are essential for the 21st century workplace, a university education is far more than vocational training: it’s designed to foster personal growth and intellectual development.

Remember – in Humanities, there isn’t always a direct link between the subject you study and the career path you follow after graduating.

The academic fields that study the human condition – prepare young adults for the most essential aspects of work: getting along with other people, understanding multiple points of view and coming to terms with one’s place in the world. As such, students of all majors need exposure to the humanities to be adequately — and practically — prepared for the working world. The skills learned in the humanities are practical, and, even better they are timeless.

— Elizabeth H. Bradley President of Vassar College

Learn about us

Humanities during a time of global change, investing in humanities is key to post-pandemic recovery.

In our rapidly changing world, government policymakers will need to recognize the important insights gained through humanities and social sciences research to drive COVID-19 recovery and secure a better future for Canadians.

Why Science Needs The Humanities To Solve Climate Change

Going beyond science, humanists can define cultural forces driving climate change and uncover the root of complex problems. Society needs humanists and their “soft” technologies – intangible tools for solving problems based on non-scientific knowledge.

Humanities provides career benefits

Oxford study: Humanities benefits young people's future careers and wider society. New research shows how studying the humanities benefits young people’s future careers and wider society – despite challenges of COVID-19 and employment changes.

Literature is unbelievably helpful because no matter what business you are in, you are dealing with interpersonal relationships. It gives you an appreciation of what makes people tick.

— Michael Eisner Former Chairman and CEO, the Walt Disney Company

My program at McMaster provided me with the opportunity to commune with students and professors who encouraged interdisciplinary approaches to creating knowledge.

Casey Mecija '13

Combined Honours Communication and Multimedia Studies

The programs I chose and the opportunities that came with them fuelled my curiosity, sharpened my critical thinking skills, and broadened my worldview.

Alyssa Lai '12

BA Communication Studies and Theatre and Film Studies

Through my Multimedia major, I learned technical skills that have made me invaluable in the workplace.

Kaitlynn Jong '16

Combined Honours Communication Studies and Multimedia

Employers across Canada and around the world choose Humanities graduates because of their adaptability, flexibility, empathy and critical thinking skills -- essential knowledge in the 21st-century workplace.

Mandel Center for the Humanities
World Languages and Cultures
Humanities Course Listings Spring 2023
Fall 2023 Literature Courses
MUSE Humanities Newsletter
Latest News
Upcoming Events
Past Events
Books, Recent Faculty Publications
Faculty Fellowships
Faculty Grants
Humanities Fellowship
Doris Brewer Cohen Award
Humanities Virtual Academic Showcase
Degree Programs
Majors and Minors
Graduate Programs
The Brandeis Core
School of Arts and Sciences
Brandeis Online
Brandeis International Business School
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Heller School for Social Policy and Management
Rabb School of Continuing Studies
Precollege Programs
Faculty and Researcher Directory
Brandeis Library
Academic Calendar
Undergraduate Admissions
Summer School
Financial Aid
Research that Matters
Resources for Researchers
Brandeis Researchers in the News
Provost Research Grants
Recent Awards
Faculty Research
Student Research
Centers and Institutes
Office of the Vice Provost for Research
Office of the Provost
Housing/Community Living
Campus Calendar
Student Engagement
Clubs and Organizations
Community Service
Dean of Students Office
Orientation
Hiatt Career Center
Spiritual Life
Graduate Student Affairs
Directory of Campus Contacts
Division of Creative Arts
Brandeis Arts Engagement
Rose Art Museum
Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts
Theater Arts Productions
Brandeis Concert Series
Public Sculpture at Brandeis
Women's Studies Research Center
Creative Arts Award
Our Jewish Roots
The Framework for the Future
Mission and Diversity Statements
Distinguished Faculty
Nobel Prize 2017
Notable Alumni
Administration
Working at Brandeis
Commencement
Offices Directory
Faculty & Staff
Alumni & Friends
Parents & Families
75th Anniversary
New Students
Shuttle Schedules
Support at Brandeis

Division of Humanities

Why the humanities matter.

Student in a classroom look toward the front of the classroom

The study of reason and imagination, which takes place in the humanities, involves grappling — through reading, discussion and frequent writing — with important texts and ideas throughout history and across cultures. The study of other languages enables close encounters with surprising new ways of thinking about and comprehending the world. Such inquiries deepen our understanding of the past, enlarge our perceptions of the present and suggest a range of sustainable paths through the unknown future.

The habits of thought cultivated by our rich programs promote openness, flexibility, observational skills, alertness to moral complexity and the sharpening of our precious human faculties of reason and imagination, so necessary in our ever-more complex world.

The humanities are especially vital in an interconnected, restless world. They foster a genuine and deep understanding of individual and social justice, an authentic appreciation and admiration for difference, and a thrilling and life-enhancing recognition of beauty in its many forms. The study of the humanities inevitably deepens and fundamentally alters our often-narrow concepts of globalism. As the humanities range over cultures and genres, from ancient texts through modern films and popular cultures, they expand the boundaries of our minds. Students have numerous opportunities to hone their powers of reasoning, imagination and discernment.

Humanistic inquiry allows each of us to enter into the ongoing conversation of humankind about things that matter. These conversations and the works of literature and philosophy constitute the essence of what it means to be a human being.

Departments and Programs
Grants and Fellowships
Prizes and Awards

For More Information

For inquiries regarding this website or to submit an event or a news item, please email Sonja Catano .

Humanities Academic Services Center

Why Study the Humanities?

In the Humanities at UW, students will be trained to:

Develop a global perspective and an understanding of diverse cultures
Think critically and communicate expressively across media and genres
Engage with texts, languages, history, culture and civilization
Push boundaries, embrace scholarship, and investigate issues of power and difference

If you are looking to learn more about the value of Humanities Scholarship, or are considering if adding a Humanities program to your UW experience has value, read on for real world examples and benefits.

For even more, we invite you to visit the College of Arts and Sciences page on the Humanities Division .

“Curiosity, creativity, and empathy aren’t unruly traits that must be reined in to ensure success. Just the opposite. The human touch has never been more essential in the workplace than it is today. You don’t have to mask your true identity to get paid for your strengths...the job market is quietly creating thousands of openings a week for people who can bring a humanist’s grace to our rapidly evolving high-tech future.” George Anders Author, “You Can Do Anything”

Real World Applications

The Humanities shape real world business, policy, and technology applications. Learn more about what our students go on to do with our career, alumni, and data insight resources. Learning outcomes, performance metrics, and employer data for Humanities Students are just a click away.

The Humanities as an "And", not an "Or"

A major as part of your degree is not a zero-sum equation; even if you weren't considering the Humanities as your sole major, you do have the bandwidth and the time for more than a single major at UW. Education is a cohesive collection of experiences, each providing its own unique contribution to a person’s future, and a competitive education that prepares someone for what's next should include "and" at every turn.

For Humanities majors or minors, our programs are structured in a way that allows a variety of double major, double degree, and major/minor combinations, each within the scope of a student's overall degree experience and graduation timeline. Adding a Humanities major or minor has real world benefits:

A medical practitioner speaks with a patient

Learning another language doesn’t just train students in sentence structure and vocabulary; it trains them to understand and interpret cultures and worldviews. Essential for political discourse and ethical policy.

If you want someone who can tell you if your business plan is going to work, your first stop might be a business school. If you want someone who can tell you whether or not it will work in Argentina or Japan, you'll need a student with Humanities training.
Physicians with language training learn faster which diagnostic questions translate into something their patients will understand and respond to.
Cognitive development and infant language acquisition blends linguistics and psychology. Labwork advances faster when skills are diversified.
Film and literature help develop a stronger understanding of how different cultures and societies view the impact of modern crises. A difference maker for the next generation of NGO and NPO leaders.

Real World Examples of the Humanities Edge

Asian Languages & Cultures + Computer Science
American Sign Language + Early Childhood Education
Cinema & Media Studies + Communications
Classical Studies + Architectural Design
Comparative History of Ideas + Business (Entrepreneurship)
English Creative Writing + Business (Marketing)
French + Art History
German + Mechanical Engineering
Global Literary Studies + Human Rights
Linguistics + Human-Computer Interaction
Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures + Political Science
Scandinavian Studies + Interior Design
Russian + Aeronautics/Astronautics
Spanish + Global Health

The World Needs Both Humanists & Technologists

The Humanities trains the next generation to reflect on questions of human existence that need answers: What language frameworks or messaging do people respond to, and why? How does a culture grow, change, and define reality? What constitutes a just action or society? How do humans understand and manage happiness or mitigate suffering?

Students examine human-computer interaction

In any industry and field, leaders, decision makers, and participants are all still at humans at their core. Proximity to (and engagement with) different ways of thinking through Humanities programs will make you a better lawyer, physician, or software engineer because it will train you to understand the human perspective and the human experience through creative communication, problem solving, and relationship building.

Adding the Humanities to your experience will train you in the spirit of inquiry to ask questions in a way that others might not; to ask the right questions, not just the obvious questions.

Better AI and Business through Humanistic Understanding

Truly understanding (not just discerning) blind spots in LLMs, data set biases, and neural networks used in AI needs Humanities training; training that can provide moral context, cultural clues, and ethical solutions for what people do and do not respond to. The next generation of program managers at tech companies will manage stronger teams and be promoted faster with these skill sets.

A business student presents on Argentina

Examination of relationships and feelings, and the feelings of others cannot be found in a computer science or business curriculum, but after graduation, those fields still demand those skillsets in new hires.

A World Economic Forum survey of top executives from nine leading industries listed the liberal arts skills of critical thinking, writing, emotional intelligence, and cognitive flexibility as the top skills they are looking for in employees. Forbes magazine writes that “today’s tech wave will inspire a new style of work in which tech takes care of routine tasks so that people can concentrate on what mortals do best: generating creative ideas and actions in a data-rich world.” See more here.

“What matters now is not the skills you have, but how you think. Can you ask the right questions? Do you know what problem you’re trying to solve in the first place?” Harvard Business Review

Value of the Humanities

The Humanities: Quo Vadis? Presented here are studies and arguments in favor of the humanities, as well as works highlighting their contributions to society and their deep meaning for us.

Book cover of Why We Need the Humanities, showing an open door

Frederick Luis Aldama, Why the Humanities Matter: A Commonsense Approach (2008) Aldama considers whether or not postmodernism is indeed the death of the humanities or a rebirth of their relevance for the 21st century. Recalling the core pursuits of the humanities as beauty, truth and goodness, Aldama presents how the humanities are still our best approach to explore these values in the modern era.

Humanities in a Holistic Education

The Heart of the Matter (Report) In 2011 the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences was established to investigate a question posed by Congress: how can America maintain excellence in humanities and social sciences teaching and research? The Heart of the Matter is the Commission’s report looking at the significance of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.

Humanities Graduates and the British Economy: The Hidden Impact (Report) The findings of this study of 11,000 Oxford humanities graduates suggest that humanities students are not pigeonholed to the humanities forever thereafter. Significant proportions entered other careers, including finance, law and management positions, beyond the expected media, education and artistic career paths. Humanities students who entered these other fields were recruited for their ability to analyze problems, write persuasively and succinctly and consider the morality and ethics of practices.

The Role of the Humanities (Interview) Northrop Frye, esteemed literary critic and scholar, identifies the emergence of the humanities, distinct from science and from theology, in the age of the Renaissance, when what made us human was given a category of its own study. The ability to articulate what makes us human, he argues, is at the foundation of the civilizations we build. By direct effect, the humanities allow us to build and maintain our societies, and suppression thereof would begin a societal regression.

The Value and Importance of the Arts and the Humanities in Education and Life (Interview) Dr. Mitchell B. Reiss, President and CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, recounts the importance of the humanities in education when as the head of Washington College he recalled how studying these topics developed “analytical thinking, clarity in written and spoken expression, collaboration, and creativity.” He believes students should be exposed to interdisciplinary studies no matter their focus, just as Einstein grew up studying piano and music, which later helped him think through his scientific career.

What Is The Value Of An Education In The Humanities? (Commentary)

Astrophysics professor Adam Frank argues that a combination of humanities-based and STEM education is what’s necessary for students interested in just one field or another. Big-data is changing the way that history research is being done, just as much as technology is developed to meet human needs, he observes.

Impact of Humanities Research and Scholarship

ACLS Fellows: Focus on Research Fellows of the American Council of Learned Societies write about their research, including how knowledge is created and how it benefits our understanding of the world.

Assessing the Impact of Arts and Humanities Research at the University of Cambridge (Report) This RAND Corporation report studied Cambridge researchers and external users of humanities research. The authors developed an analytical framework (“Payback Framework”), and found that humanities research contributed to public knowledge creation, professional legal practice, and understanding and reporting of current events (to name just a few impacts).

Humanities Research is Groundbreaking, Life-Changing...and Ignored (Essay) Gretchen Busl argues that the value of the humanities extends beyond teaching students to think critically. Humanities scholarship, especially what Busl terms “public humanities scholarship” has wide impact in technology, business, and culture.

Q&A with NEH Public Scholars NEH Public Scholars answer questions about their books, including a description of the book why the project will have broad appeal.

Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

Browse content in Arts and Humanities
Browse content in Archaeology
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
Archaeology by Region
Archaeology of Religion
Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
Biblical Archaeology
Contemporary and Public Archaeology
Environmental Archaeology
Historical Archaeology
History and Theory of Archaeology
Industrial Archaeology
Landscape Archaeology
Mortuary Archaeology
Prehistoric Archaeology
Underwater Archaeology
Urban Archaeology
Zooarchaeology
Browse content in Architecture
Architectural Structure and Design
History of Architecture
Residential and Domestic Buildings
Theory of Architecture
Browse content in Art
Art Subjects and Themes
History of Art
Industrial and Commercial Art
Theory of Art
Biographical Studies
Byzantine Studies
Browse content in Classical Studies
Classical History
Classical Philosophy
Classical Mythology
Classical Literature
Classical Reception
Classical Art and Architecture
Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
Greek and Roman Epigraphy
Greek and Roman Law
Greek and Roman Archaeology
Greek and Roman Papyrology
Late Antiquity
Religion in the Ancient World
Digital Humanities
Browse content in History
Colonialism and Imperialism
Diplomatic History
Environmental History
Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
Historical Geography
History by Period
History of Agriculture
History of Education
History of Emotions
History of Gender and Sexuality
Industrial History
Intellectual History
International History
Labour History
Legal and Constitutional History
Local and Family History
Maritime History
Military History
National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
Oral History
Political History
Public History
Regional and National History
Revolutions and Rebellions
Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
Social and Cultural History
Theory, Methods, and Historiography
Urban History
World History
Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
Language Learning (Specific Skills)
Language Teaching Theory and Methods
Browse content in Linguistics
Applied Linguistics
Cognitive Linguistics
Computational Linguistics
Forensic Linguistics
Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
History of English
Language Acquisition
Language Variation
Language Families
Language Evolution
Language Reference
Lexicography
Linguistic Theories
Linguistic Typology
Linguistic Anthropology
Phonetics and Phonology
Psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Translation and Interpretation
Writing Systems
Browse content in Literature
Bibliography
Children's Literature Studies
Literary Studies (Asian)
Literary Studies (European)
Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
Literary Studies (Modernism)
Literary Studies (Romanticism)
Literary Studies (American)
Literary Studies - World
Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
Literary Studies (19th Century)
Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
Literary Studies (African American Literature)
Literary Studies (British and Irish)
Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
Literary Studies (History of the Book)
Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
Literary Studies (War Literature)
Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
Mythology and Folklore
Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
Browse content in Media Studies
Browse content in Music
Applied Music
Dance and Music
Ethics in Music
Ethnomusicology
Gender and Sexuality in Music
Medicine and Music
Music Cultures
Music and Religion
Music and Culture
Music and Media
Music Education and Pedagogy
Music Theory and Analysis
Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
Musicology and Music History
Performance Practice and Studies
Race and Ethnicity in Music
Sound Studies
Browse content in Performing Arts
Browse content in Philosophy
Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
Epistemology
Feminist Philosophy
History of Western Philosophy
Metaphysics
Moral Philosophy
Non-Western Philosophy
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Action
Philosophy of Law
Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of Language
Philosophy of Mind
Philosophy of Perception
Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
Practical Ethics
Social and Political Philosophy
Browse content in Religion
Biblical Studies
Christianity
East Asian Religions
History of Religion
Judaism and Jewish Studies
Qumran Studies
Religion and Education
Religion and Health
Religion and Politics
Religion and Science
Religion and Law
Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
Religious Studies
Browse content in Society and Culture
Cookery, Food, and Drink
Cultural Studies
Customs and Traditions
Ethical Issues and Debates
Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
Sports and Outdoor Recreation
Technology and Society
Travel and Holiday
Visual Culture
Browse content in Law
Arbitration
Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
Commercial Law
Company Law
Browse content in Comparative Law
Systems of Law
Competition Law
Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
Government Powers
Judicial Review
Local Government Law
Military and Defence Law
Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
Construction Law
Contract Law
Browse content in Criminal Law
Criminal Procedure
Criminal Evidence Law
Sentencing and Punishment
Employment and Labour Law
Environment and Energy Law
Browse content in Financial Law
Banking Law
Insolvency Law
History of Law
Human Rights and Immigration
Intellectual Property Law
Browse content in International Law
Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
Public International Law
IT and Communications Law
Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
Law and Politics
Law and Society
Browse content in Legal System and Practice
Courts and Procedure
Legal Skills and Practice
Primary Sources of Law
Regulation of Legal Profession
Medical and Healthcare Law
Browse content in Policing
Criminal Investigation and Detection
Police and Security Services
Police Procedure and Law
Police Regional Planning
Browse content in Property Law
Personal Property Law
Study and Revision
Terrorism and National Security Law
Browse content in Trusts Law
Wills and Probate or Succession
Browse content in Medicine and Health
Browse content in Allied Health Professions
Arts Therapies
Clinical Science
Dietetics and Nutrition
Occupational Therapy
Operating Department Practice
Physiotherapy
Radiography
Speech and Language Therapy
Browse content in Anaesthetics
General Anaesthesia
Neuroanaesthesia
Browse content in Clinical Medicine
Acute Medicine
Cardiovascular Medicine
Clinical Genetics
Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Dermatology
Endocrinology and Diabetes
Gastroenterology
Genito-urinary Medicine
Geriatric Medicine
Infectious Diseases
Medical Oncology
Medical Toxicology
Pain Medicine
Palliative Medicine
Rehabilitation Medicine
Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
Rheumatology
Sleep Medicine
Sports and Exercise Medicine
Clinical Neuroscience
Community Medical Services
Critical Care
Emergency Medicine
Forensic Medicine
Haematology
History of Medicine
Browse content in Medical Dentistry
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Paediatric Dentistry
Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
Surgical Dentistry
Medical Ethics
Browse content in Medical Skills
Clinical Skills
Communication Skills
Nursing Skills
Surgical Skills
Medical Statistics and Methodology
Browse content in Neurology
Clinical Neurophysiology
Neuropathology
Nursing Studies
Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Gynaecology
Occupational Medicine
Ophthalmology
Otolaryngology (ENT)
Browse content in Paediatrics
Neonatology
Browse content in Pathology
Chemical Pathology
Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
Histopathology
Medical Microbiology and Virology
Patient Education and Information
Browse content in Pharmacology
Psychopharmacology
Browse content in Popular Health
Caring for Others
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Self-help and Personal Development
Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
Cell Biology
Molecular Biology and Genetics
Reproduction, Growth and Development
Primary Care
Professional Development in Medicine
Browse content in Psychiatry
Addiction Medicine
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Forensic Psychiatry
Learning Disabilities
Old Age Psychiatry
Psychotherapy
Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
Epidemiology
Public Health
Browse content in Radiology
Clinical Radiology
Interventional Radiology
Nuclear Medicine
Radiation Oncology
Reproductive Medicine
Browse content in Surgery
Cardiothoracic Surgery
Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
General Surgery
Neurosurgery
Paediatric Surgery
Peri-operative Care
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
Surgical Oncology
Transplant Surgery
Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
Vascular Surgery
Browse content in Science and Mathematics
Browse content in Biological Sciences
Aquatic Biology
Biochemistry
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Developmental Biology
Ecology and Conservation
Evolutionary Biology
Genetics and Genomics
Microbiology
Molecular and Cell Biology
Natural History
Plant Sciences and Forestry
Research Methods in Life Sciences
Structural Biology
Systems Biology
Zoology and Animal Sciences
Browse content in Chemistry
Analytical Chemistry
Computational Chemistry
Crystallography
Environmental Chemistry
Industrial Chemistry
Inorganic Chemistry
Materials Chemistry
Medicinal Chemistry
Mineralogy and Gems
Organic Chemistry
Physical Chemistry
Polymer Chemistry
Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
Theoretical Chemistry
Browse content in Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Architecture and Logic Design
Game Studies
Human-Computer Interaction
Mathematical Theory of Computation
Programming Languages
Software Engineering
Systems Analysis and Design
Virtual Reality
Browse content in Computing
Business Applications
Computer Security
Computer Games
Computer Networking and Communications
Digital Lifestyle
Graphical and Digital Media Applications
Operating Systems
Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
Atmospheric Sciences
Environmental Geography
Geology and the Lithosphere
Maps and Map-making
Meteorology and Climatology
Oceanography and Hydrology
Palaeontology
Physical Geography and Topography
Regional Geography
Soil Science
Urban Geography
Browse content in Engineering and Technology
Agriculture and Farming
Biological Engineering
Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
Electronics and Communications Engineering
Energy Technology
Engineering (General)
Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
History of Engineering and Technology
Mechanical Engineering and Materials
Technology of Industrial Chemistry
Transport Technology and Trades
Browse content in Environmental Science
Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
Environmental Sustainability
Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
History of Science and Technology
Browse content in Materials Science
Ceramics and Glasses
Composite Materials
Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
Nanotechnology
Browse content in Mathematics
Applied Mathematics
Biomathematics and Statistics
History of Mathematics
Mathematical Education
Mathematical Finance
Mathematical Analysis
Numerical and Computational Mathematics
Probability and Statistics
Pure Mathematics
Browse content in Neuroscience
Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
Development of the Nervous System
Disorders of the Nervous System
History of Neuroscience
Invertebrate Neurobiology
Molecular and Cellular Systems
Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
Neuroscientific Techniques
Sensory and Motor Systems
Browse content in Physics
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Biological and Medical Physics
Classical Mechanics
Computational Physics
Condensed Matter Physics
Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
History of Physics
Mathematical and Statistical Physics
Measurement Science
Nuclear Physics
Particles and Fields
Plasma Physics
Quantum Physics
Relativity and Gravitation
Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
Browse content in Psychology
Affective Sciences
Clinical Psychology
Cognitive Neuroscience
Cognitive Psychology
Criminal and Forensic Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Educational Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology
Health Psychology
History and Systems in Psychology
Music Psychology
Neuropsychology
Organizational Psychology
Psychological Assessment and Testing
Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
Psychology Professional Development and Training
Research Methods in Psychology
Social Psychology
Browse content in Social Sciences
Browse content in Anthropology
Anthropology of Religion
Human Evolution
Medical Anthropology
Physical Anthropology
Regional Anthropology
Social and Cultural Anthropology
Theory and Practice of Anthropology
Browse content in Business and Management
Business Strategy
Business History
Business Ethics
Business and Government
Business and Technology
Business and the Environment
Comparative Management
Corporate Governance
Corporate Social Responsibility
Entrepreneurship
Health Management
Human Resource Management
Industrial and Employment Relations
Industry Studies
Information and Communication Technologies
International Business
Knowledge Management
Management and Management Techniques
Operations Management
Organizational Theory and Behaviour
Pensions and Pension Management
Public and Nonprofit Management
Strategic Management
Supply Chain Management
Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice
Criminology
Forms of Crime
International and Comparative Criminology
Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
Development Studies
Browse content in Economics
Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
Asian Economics
Behavioural Finance
Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
Economic Systems
Economic Methodology
Economic History
Economic Development and Growth
Financial Markets
Financial Institutions and Services
General Economics and Teaching
Health, Education, and Welfare
History of Economic Thought
International Economics
Labour and Demographic Economics
Law and Economics
Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
Microeconomics
Public Economics
Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
Welfare Economics
Browse content in Education
Adult Education and Continuous Learning
Care and Counselling of Students
Early Childhood and Elementary Education
Educational Equipment and Technology
Educational Strategies and Policy
Higher and Further Education
Organization and Management of Education
Philosophy and Theory of Education
Schools Studies
Secondary Education
Teaching of a Specific Subject
Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
Teaching Skills and Techniques
Browse content in Environment
Applied Ecology (Social Science)
Climate Change
Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
Natural Disasters (Environment)
Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
Browse content in Human Geography
Cultural Geography
Economic Geography
Political Geography
Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
Communication Studies
Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
Browse content in Politics
African Politics
Asian Politics
Chinese Politics
Comparative Politics
Conflict Politics
Elections and Electoral Studies
Environmental Politics
European Union
Foreign Policy
Gender and Politics
Human Rights and Politics
Indian Politics
International Relations
International Organization (Politics)
International Political Economy
Irish Politics
Latin American Politics
Middle Eastern Politics
Political Methodology
Political Communication
Political Philosophy
Political Sociology
Political Theory
Political Behaviour
Political Economy
Political Institutions
Politics and Law
Politics of Development
Public Administration
Public Policy
Quantitative Political Methodology
Regional Political Studies
Russian Politics
Security Studies
State and Local Government
UK Politics
US Politics
Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
African Studies
Asian Studies
East Asian Studies
Japanese Studies
Latin American Studies
Middle Eastern Studies
Native American Studies
Scottish Studies
Browse content in Research and Information
Research Methods
Browse content in Social Work
Addictions and Substance Misuse
Adoption and Fostering
Care of the Elderly
Child and Adolescent Social Work
Couple and Family Social Work
Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
Emergency Services
Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
International and Global Issues in Social Work
Mental and Behavioural Health
Social Justice and Human Rights
Social Policy and Advocacy
Social Work and Crime and Justice
Social Work Macro Practice
Social Work Practice Settings
Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
Welfare and Benefit Systems
Browse content in Sociology
Childhood Studies
Community Development
Comparative and Historical Sociology
Economic Sociology
Gender and Sexuality
Gerontology and Ageing
Health, Illness, and Medicine
Marriage and the Family
Migration Studies
Occupations, Professions, and Work
Organizations
Population and Demography
Race and Ethnicity
Social Theory
Social Movements and Social Change
Social Research and Statistics
Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
Sociology of Religion
Sociology of Education
Sport and Leisure
Urban and Rural Studies
Browse content in Warfare and Defence
Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
Land Forces and Warfare
Military Administration
Military Life and Institutions
Naval Forces and Warfare
Other Warfare and Defence Issues
Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
Weapons and Equipment

Making Sense of the World: New Essays on the Philosophy of Understanding

< Previous chapter
Next chapter >

9 Why (Study) the Humanities? The View from Science

Published: November 2017
Cite Icon Cite
Permissions Icon Permissions

This chapter addresses the relationship between the humanistic and scientific visions of the human being, says why the humanistic vision is not undermined by what science is teaching us about ourselves, and then turns to a discussion of the kind of understanding that the humanities provide. It argues that that understanding differs from the kind of understanding provided by the sciences, and that it is indispensable to human flourishing. The humanities enrich our experience of the world; educate the imagination; help us understand ourselves and other people; and teach us how to live, how to love, and how to feel.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

Google Scholar Indexing
GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]

Personal account

Sign in with email/username & password
Get email alerts
Save searches
Purchase content
Activate your purchase/trial code
Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with username/password
Recommend to your librarian
Institutional account management
Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institutionâ€™s website and Oxford Academic.

Click Sign in through your institution.
Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institutionâ€™s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see â€˜Sign in through society siteâ€™ in the sign in pane within a journal:

Click Sign in through society site.
When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

About Oxford Academic
Publish journals with us
University press partners
What we publish
New features
Open access
Rights and permissions
Accessibility
Advertising
Media enquiries
Oxford University Press
Oxford Languages
University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
Cookie settings
Cookie policy
Privacy policy
Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

clock This article was published more than 6 years ago

Why we still need to study the humanities in a STEM world

It is common to hear today, in the era of big data and STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — that liberal arts degrees are, well, relatively worthless. What is someone with a degree in English literature going to do with it, besides teach?

The question isn’t new. A decade ago, a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics magazine published an article titled “ What Can I Do With My Liberal Arts Degree? ” which starts with this: “What are you going to do with a degree in that ? Do you want to be a teacher?”

Since then, private and public pushes to increase STEM education have given rise to new concerns about the value of a liberal arts education — as well as arguments about why it is incredibly valuable, even to people going into STEM fields. A new book by George Anders titled “ You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Education ,” says:

Curiosity, creativity, and empathy aren’t unruly traits that must be reined in to ensure success. Just the opposite. The human touch has never been more essential in the workplace than it is today. You don’t have to mask your true identity to get paid for your strengths. You don’t need to apologize for the supposedly impractical classes you took in college or the so-called soft skills you have acquired. The job market is quietly creating thousands of openings a week for people who can bring a humanist’s grace to our rapidly evolving high-tech future.

And it makes this point:

The more we automate the routine stuff, the more we create a constant low-level hum of digital connectivity, the more we get tangled up in the vastness and blind spots of big data, the more essential it is to bring human judgment into the junctions of our digital lives.

Yet fewer students are studying the liberal arts than they did a few decades ago. A recent study by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, through its Humanities Indicators project , found that the number of bachelor’s degrees in the humanities that were earned in 2015, the last year for which there is data, was down nearly 10 percent from three years earlier.

Here’s a new piece on the humanities — what they are and why they are important — by Gerald Greenberg, senior associate dean of academic affairs; humanities; and curriculum, instruction and programs in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University. Greenberg is a linguistics expert who teaches courses in Russian and whose interests include Russian and Slavic linguistics as well as syntactic theory. He has published many articles and essays on a variety of topics, including areas such as stress placement, the syntax of various non-finite constructions, case marking and language change.

By Gerald Greenberg

The value of a college education has long been debated. Some question an education that doesn’t explicitly provide training in a job skill — a criticism aimed at the humanities — while others push back, noting that employers increasingly are seeking the problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities that these majors bring to their jobs. Yet there are more important reasons for studying subjects within the humanities — such as philosophy, history, literature, religion, art, music, and language — and we ignore them at our own peril.

A liberal education is a cohesive collection of experiences, each providing its own unique contribution to the enlightenment of its practitioners . Typically, a liberal arts education involves the study of the natural sciences (including mathematics), the social sciences, and the humanities. (The natural sciences and math are frequently associated with STEM — science, technology, engineering, mathematics — and not considered to be part of a liberal education, even though they are.)

A typical college curriculum requires students to sample fields in each subject . Within the sciences, one can learn about what happens when tiny particles collide, which can open the window into the universe. Within the social sciences, one can learn about how resources are used by people and companies, which can lead to an understanding of how the economy might develop. Within the humanities, one can learn another language, which can open the window into a new culture, a new worldview.

Many other examples exist, but the point is that it is only through engaging in the thinking processes practiced in these areas that one can be exposed to various ways of thinking, analyzing, and questioning. The experiences gained from studying in different fields may be qualitatively different, but they are all vital pieces of the Tao of the liberal arts , and are all equally important.

What is the Tao of the liberal arts? As I wrote in this piece , understanding the liberal arts is comparable to understanding the Tao , the source of everything in Taoism , an ancient Chinese philosophical system that explains why things are the way they are and why things happen the way they do. The liberal arts offer knowledge and the cultivation of habits of mind that allow graduates to mature into successful, productive members of society who can appreciate others, experience and embrace the notion of empathy, and seek lifelong learning.

Yet while popularity in areas such as economics or neuroscience continues to grow, interest in humanistic topics is moving just as quickly in the opposite direction. Many assert the primacy of the STEM fields, while for humanistic studies, politicians belittle them, parents urge their children to avoid them, and students choose them as majors less and less.

Many defenders of the humanities emphasize the pragmatic or practical value of studying the humanities disciplines, and their arguments are good ones. Articles and studies describe how employers seek graduates who can think critically and write clearly, both by-products of studying the humanities.

Nevertheless, while there seems to be little problem defining or identifying fields in the areas of science and technology, both supporters and detractors of the humanities have difficulty defining the humanities or agreeing on a definition that encompasses them all.

One approach to defining the humanities involves lists: literature, philosophy, foreign language, etc. However, this not only fails to provide a definition but sometimes sparks disagreements about which areas fall within the humanities. More general definitions provide further insight into what the humanities are, but they can be confusing and lead people to conclude they are irrelevant, overly simple, not valuable, and not worthy of serious study. Some definitions indicate the humanities are disciplines that study human culture or examine the human condition. Such terms, too, become open to broad and varied interpretations, which can easily lead to confusion.

Rather than defining the fields within humanities, we can try to explain what study in the humanities does. We might say fields within the humanities study and analyze artifacts that are created by human beings, such as literature, music, art, etc. We might say the humanities help us to analyze and grapple with complex moral issues, help us understand what goes on inside of us, that is, show us what it means to be a human being. In reaction to such definitions, however, the nonbelievers reject the need to study the humanities; after all, they are human beings, they grapple with complex issues pretty much on a daily basis.

Through studying the humanities, one has the opportunity to get to know oneself and others better, the opportunity to become better able to understand and grapple with complex moral issues, the complexities and intricacies of humanity.

When you take courses in any humanities discipline, you are using different methods to learn about individuals, including yourself, and groups of peoples. You examine relationships and feelings, the feelings of others, as well as your own feelings. You develop empathy and an appreciation for others that can help address difficult situations, personal and professional.

The ability to process information and to deal with difficult situations is important to everyone just to get through everyday life. It is also important for helping to deal with contemporary global issues at local, national, and international levels. Mathematics, the sciences, engineering, and technology are certainly useful, but the humanities provide another way of viewing issues, and better decisions are made when diverse opinions and ideas are considered.

Leaders and decision-makers who are able to employ a broader, more diverse range of ideas and knowledge will be better able to run businesses and governments and react to difficult situations as they develop and arise. We see time and time again, however, that a lack of appreciation of the humanity involved in any situation can lead to undesirable results.

The value of the humanities can only be fully appreciated by experiencing and knowing them. In response to the question: “What are the humanities?” University of Amsterdam Professor Rens Bod noted , “It is like the notion of ‘time’ in St. Augustine: if you don’t ask, we know, but if you ask, we are left empty-handed.”

Therefore, it isn’t so important to define the humanities, or what field is or isn’t part of the humanities; what’s important is what studying a humanities discipline does for the person experiencing it. Studying a humanities field involves moving beyond the search for the immediate and pragmatic; it opens one to the examination of the entirety of the human condition and encourages one to grapple with complex moral issues ever-present in life. It encourages reflection and provides one with an appreciation and empathy for humanity. This is why critical thinking done in the humanities goes beyond problem solving.

Even if we cannot agree on what they are, the humanities are an important part of the way. Given the state of the country and the world today, they are more important than ever.

You can also read:

What the ‘liberal’ in ‘liberal arts’ actually means

The Tao of the liberal arts

Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Harts (humanities and arts) initiative.

Why study the humanities and arts

The humanities and the arts are central to all human cultures throughout time. Their study can facilitate deeper intercultural understanding and lay the groundwork for a civically engaged life. They can also prepare you to think critically, act creatively, and succeed in a rapidly changing world.

Below are posts written by PCC humanities and arts faculty and staff. The posts describe the importance of HARTS programs at PCC, and explain why students should pursue these programs. Some posts link to thought-provoking articles published outside the PCC community.

Sign up for the HARTS newsletter

" * " indicates required fields

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

View all journals
My Account Login
Explore content
About the journal
Publish with us
Sign up for alerts
Open access
Published: 09 April 2019

The place of the humanities in today’s knowledge society

Rosário Couto Costa ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7505-4455 1

Palgrave Communications volume 5 , Article number: 38 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

37k Accesses

12 Citations

111 Altmetric

Metrics details

Over the past four decades, the humanities have been subject to a progressive devaluation within the academic world, with early instances of this phenomenon tracing back to the USA and the UK. There are several clues as to how the university has generally been placing a lower importance on these fields, such as through the elimination of courses or even whole departments. It is worth mentioning that this discrimination against humanities degrees is indirect in nature, as it is in fact mostly the result of the systematic promotion of other fields, particularly, for instance, business management. Such a phenomenon has nonetheless resulted in a considerable reduction in the percentage of humanities graduates within a set of 30 OECD countries, when compared to other areas. In some countries, a decline can even be observed in relation to their absolute numbers, especially with regards to doctorate degrees. This article sheds some light on examples of international political guidelines, laid out by the OECD and the World Bank, which have contributed to this devaluation. It takes a look at the impacts of shrinking resources within academic departments of the humanities, both inside and outside of the university, while assessing the benefits and value of studying these fields. A case is made that a society that is assumed to be ideally based on knowledge should be more permeable and welcoming to the different and unique disciplines that produce it, placing fair and impartial value on its respective fields.

Introduction

In August 2017, the World Humanities Conference took place in Liège, Belgium. The theme was Challenges and Responsibilities for a Planet in Transition , and it was organized in cooperation with UNESCO. The rationale for this conference can be summarized as follows:

“The humanities were at the heart of both public debate and the political arena until the Second World War. In recent years their part was fading and they have been marginalized. It is crucial to stop their marginalization, restore them and impose their presence in the public sphere as well as in science policies Footnote 1 ”

I participated in this event and it gave me hope that it would be possible to reverse the general trend of devaluating the humanities, something that has been going on since the early 1980s, namely in the UK and in the USA (Costa, 2016 ). Such a phenomenon has coexisted with an acceleration in globalization and a widespread rise of neoliberalism, two trends which have been gradual and simultaneous in their origins (Heywood, 2014 ). In regard to the growth of neoliberalism, while in the 1980s only four countries had what could be reasonably categorized as neoliberal governments (Chile, New Zealand, the UK and the USA), at the beginning of the 21 st century that number had multiplied all around the world (Peck, 2012 ).

This marginalization of the humanities has been a gradual process that manifested itself at different times throughout the countries in which it can be observed. A global approach was used for studying this process (Costa, 2016 ), along with available OECD data which consisted of a subset of thirty countries and recorded the period between 2000 and 2012 Footnote 2 . Under these circumstances, “graduates by field of education” Footnote 3 is arguably one of the few relevant indicators that we can establish. On analysing it, one can conclude that despite some variance in tendencies for each individual nation, there is an overall shift that allows us to confidently corroborate such a devaluation when we compare figures for the year 2000 with those of 2012. This approach was further complemented with the analysis of case studies and existing academic literature on the topic (Costa, 2016 ).

With that in mind, it seems paradoxical that in a so-called knowledge society, one that should be ‘nurtured by its diversity and its capacities’ (UNESCO, 2005 , p.17), not all knowledge fields would be valued in an equitable manner. So why does it happen and why namely at the expense of the humanities? Conversely, what are the reasons for looking at the humanities in a more positive light? These reasons have long been known, but can nowadays lack sufficient recognition. The goal of this comment is to address these questions.

The way to find the answers to these discussion points begins with an analysis of political documents written within the framework of international organisations such as the World Bank and the OECD during the transition into the 21st century. This analysis identifies some political guidelines that have plausibly influenced the global shift in the number of graduates by field of education occuring between 2000 and 2012. Afterwards, we take a look at the impact that these guidelines have had both within and outside of the University. Once done, we reflect on the benefits of studying the humanities and on the complementarity of the various knowledge fields within society.

The political constraints of the devaluation of the humanities in an academic context

Taking into account the already long history of the University, its most recent transformation has been marked by the principles of neoliberalism and the pace of this change has increased since 1998 (Altbach et al., 2009 ). It is in this particular institutional context that the devaluation of the humanities has been taking place. If we pay attention to the general guidelines that have been at the core of this paradigm shift, we can see that the humanities have been confronted not so much with a direct and explicit denial of their benefits, but with the exalting of skills and traits strongly connected to other knowledge fields, such as business administration. This reasoning is based on the following analysis of some specific documents that are enlightening examples of this occurrence.

At The World Conference on Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century , organized by UNESCO in 1998, in Paris, two talks expanded on how the University was already undergoing a process of transformation—one from a practical point of view, and the second from a conceptual one.

In the first talk, titled The Financing and Management of Higher Education: a Status Report on Worldwide Reforms (Johnstone et al. 1998 ), the authors explain how the World Bank implemented its political agenda in order to reform the University throughout the 90s in several countries. A political decision to reduce public investment fundamentally altered the financial and managerial scenarios of the University. A result of this was that the academic sector was steered towards the markets, with an explicit mention in the report that this shift was meant to align with neoliberal principles.

The consistency of this reform has been hailed as remarkable by the cited authors. It has followed similar patterns across all countries independently of existing differences between them with regards to political and economic systems, states of industrial and technological development, and the structuring elements of the higher education system itself.

In the other talk, titled Higher Education Relevance in the 21st Century , Michael Gibbons ( 1998 ), counselor to the World Bank, affirms the urgency of a new paradigm for the University, and theorizes such a transformation. Accordingly, the main mission of the University would be to serve the economy, specifically through the training of human resources, as well as the production of knowledge, for that purpose. Other functions would be cast into the background. In order for this institution to adjust to its new priorities, the author affirms that a new culture would have to impose itself on the University: a new way of considering accountability—so called “new accountability”—with financial accounting at its core; the dissemination of a new practice of highly ideological management (“new public management” or “new managerialism”); and a new way of utilizing human resources with the goal of maximizing efficiency. In short, an entrepreneurial outlook on the concept of “University”.

A few years later, the document The New Economy. Beyond the Hype (OECD, 2001 ) essentially anticipated the impact of the then new model of University on the prioritization of the various fields of knowledge. The success of this “New Economy”, where a noticeable rise in investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) was apparent, required individuals qualified not only to work with these technologies but also fit to answer the new organizational challenges brought about by them. Due to this, areas such as ICT and management began to become promoted more strongly, namely in higher education and research, and the connection between higher education and the job market strengthened.

An indirect discrimination of the humanities was thus induced, with real-world consequences. One of the symptoms relating to such a social phenomenon has been a progressively lower relative representation of graduates in humanities and, in some countries, also of the absolute representation, especially with regards to doctorate degrees. For instance, in the period between 2000 and 2012, while the number of humanities graduates rose by a factor of 1.4—and that of total graduates by a factor of 1.6 overall—those in the area of business administration increased by a factor of 1.8 Footnote 4 . For perspective, this accounts for virtually a fifth of total graduates. In other words, although academia within the humanities is growing, it is doing so at a disproportionately lower pace than when compared with other fields.

As Pierre Bourdieu had already outlined in Homo Academicvs (Bourdieu, 1984 ), alterations in the relative representation of students of certain areas, and thus of respective University staff, have an impact not only on power balances within the University, but also on its influence on society itself. The author saw these as morphological changes—a point of view that shapes the following considerations.

The impact of shrinking resources within academic departments of the humanities

With regard to the internal impact of shrinking resources within academic departments of the humanities, we can identify several clues as to how the University has generally been placing a lower importance on the humanities Footnote 5 :

Cuts in the financing of research and teaching;

a lower share of the space and structure within the University, through the elimination of courses and even departments;

undervalued human resources (fewer job offers, falling wages, overloaded work schedules, aging staff, lack of opportunities for the young);

a decrease in library resources and the like;

the use of evaluation methods typical of scientific activity and which are unadjusted to the specificity of the humanities, indirectly resulting in pressure to change communication practices specific to these fields and weakening their social impact;

the extent to which some fields in the humanities are weakened, reaching dimensions so residual that they become at risk of disappearing.

These phenomena, even when not simultaneous, contribute to paving the way to further devaluation as they ultimately work together to make the humanities look progressively less attractive. In an academic context we are essentially confronted with a vicious cycle of devaluation. The next two sections deal with a series of reasons for why it becomes urgent to break such a cycle.

If on the one hand we are witnessing a shrinking of resources within academic departments of the humanities, on the other we can see a clear reduction in the relative representation of humanities graduates entering the job market. Without going too much into detail on the interdependence between these two phenomena, they stand as symptoms of a clear loss of influence of the humanities on society itself – perhaps the result of a growing incomprehension of their usefulness. Indeed, the field appears to be held hostage to a way of appreciation that is overly focused on the economy, established by those who govern and apparently accepted by most of those governed. Governors in particular tend to have a peculiar, restricted and limited way of evaluating, classifying and neglecting the humanities, even if opinions amongst themselves are not always in agreement. Through this lens, the field can be pretentiously seen as a luxury, as economically irrelevant, or even as useless - worse still, as an obstacle to access the job market Footnote 6 .

These dynamics make it even more difficult for academics in the humanities to convince others of the relevance of their area. Therefore, when competing with other areas for resources, the overall trend has been to deprioritise the humanities.

In the above-mentioned report titled Towards Knowledge Societies , UNESCO recognized that political choices tend sometimes to place a high importance on specific disciplines, namely ‘at the expense of the humanities’ (UNESCO, 2005 , p. 90). These words are coated with a subtle yet sharp sense of loss. But what is in fact lost when the humanities see their presence in society diminished?

The benefits of studying the humanities

An analysis of several sources of information, such as surveys, studies and websites, has made it possible to understand the point of view of different social actors who believe there are advantages to graduating in the humanities (Costa, 2016 ). Students (Armitage et al., 2013 ), graduates (Lamb et al., 2012 ) and researchers (Levitt et al., 2010 ) in the humanities share their opinion on what the main advantages are, and their takes coincide with the way humanities courses are promoted on the websites of the universities that were taken into account in the analysis Footnote 7 . As it would turn out, these advantages match the profile of the ideal employee as outlined by a group of employers as a condition to achieve success at their companies, according to a separate study that is unrelated to the humanities in particular (Hart Research Associates, 2013 ). In other words, even neoliberal standards and concerns are adequately addressed.

At its core, this acknowledgement of the value of the humanities can be looked at in three independent, mutually reinforcing levels: the comprehensive knowledge, skills and mindset that come with studying the field, and which are not easily outdated. These assets represent the genuine and specific character of studying these disciplines, and substantially differ from the priorities set by the political guidelines mentioned earlier. The following picture clarifies the scope of each of these levels (Fig. 1 ).

Benefits of studying the humanities. Source: adapted from Costa, 2017 , with permission of the Portuguese Association of Professionals in Sociology of Organizations and Work–APSIOT. The figure is not covered by the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

The attraction of studying the humanities lies precisely in that which one sets out to know and experiment with when one opts to study them. History, philosophy, languages and literature, to mention a few, are nuclear subjects that give us direct access to knowledge on that which is fundamentally and irreducibly human.

The challenge that this knowledge presents us with, and the effort of interpreting and attributing meaning to ourselves and that which surrounds us, are enhancers of the skills and mindset highlighted in the above graphic and their value is undeniable. Critical thought, acknowledgement of others, the ability to adjust to different realities and so forth are indispensable traits in any situation—in any institution, organization, government or company. It would thus follow that the humanities should be as explicitly and directly promoted by public policy as is specialized knowledge that directly serves firms and markets.

In spite of the value that can be recognized in studying the humanities, it stands that in the last few decades education in the field has been reduced to an almost insignificant dimension relative to other areas. It should be noted that demand in higher education is representative not just of the expectations of the students, or even of their educational and social backgrounds. It is also conditioned by the choices of a large group of social actors, interdependent amongst themselves Footnote 8 , such as decision makers – be it national or international, political or institutional –, employers and parents. But this depreciation has not been exclusive to higher education only. It has led to generalized deficits in knowledge, sensitivity and imagination, cognitive resources which are necessary to the acknowledgement of real problems within society and likewise to the development of possible solutions. The ability for citizens to possess and demonstrate a mindset of critical thinking has in this way been undermined.

One can thus argue that, at the very least from a social standpoint, much could be lost here. Martha Nussbaum warned in 2010 about the dangers this poses to democracy itself. The number of billionaires has nearly doubled as wealth has become even more concentrated in the last ten years since the financial crisis, worsening social inequalities (OXFAM, 2019 ). A society of consumption and uncontrolled, unregulated and acritical exploitation of natural resources is hindering sustainable development. Perhaps somewhat ironically, even the market economy registers some losses of its own in this scenario. The University of Oxford studied the career path of a group of their graduates in humanities, who had been students from 1960–1989, and subsequently produced a report that ‘shines a light on the breadth and variety of roles in society that they adopt, and the striking consistency with which they have had successful careers in sectors driving economic growth’ (Kreager, 2013 , p. 1). This conclusion contradicts the vision, or perhaps the bias, according to which graduations within the humanities are considered useless and of no value, especially for the economy and the labour market in general. The TED Talk Why tech needs the humanities Footnote 9 (December 2017) addresses this issue in the light yet personal manner of someone who has experienced it first hand.

On the complementarity of the various knowledge fields within society

In contrast to the trend within the humanities, from 2000 to 2012 and as previously mentioned, graduates in the area of business administration grew both in numbers and in relevance. Georges Corm ( 2013 ) considers that a new wave of employees, trained in accordance with the neoliberal ideas, has emerged in the job market. In his opinion, this is noticeable for instance in the case of MBAs, which in general have a similar format in use in the best schools around the world. Engwall et al. ( 2010 ) had already come to the conclusion that these graduates have become the new elite, taking up the leadership positions within organizations, replacing graduates namely in law and in engineering.

According to Colin Crouch ( 2016 ), ‘financial expertise has become the privileged form of knowledge, trumping other kinds, because it is embedded in the operation of […] the institutions that ensure profit maximization […]. Under certain conditions this dominance of financial knowledge can become self-destructive, destroying other forms of knowledge on which its own future depends’ (ibid., p. 34). Indeed, ‘serious problems arise when one kind of knowledge systematically triumphs over others’ (ibid., p. 35), a sentiment the author illustrates by giving examples related to engineering and geology. It can be argued that such a large pool of graduates and post-graduates in business administration has severely disrupted the balance and the complementarity of wisdom in society.

The environmental disasters and social crises that have marked the last decade, and which we have all witnessed, mean that the priority which had been given to some fields of knowledge is a concern not just of the academic community, but that it should instead be seen as an issue for all of society. If we start discrediting certain kinds of knowledge, we might end up discrediting all which are not in accordance with the interests that prevail in society at any given point in time, interests which in turn might not necessarily have the common good as their priority. This would be akin to opening a Pandora’s box.

Where has this led us? For instance, few of us are unaware of the difficulties that scientific evidence faces today in order to be appreciated and accepted by people who are farthest from the world of science, and who will more easily trust populist discourses (Baron, 2016 ; Boyd, 2016 ; Gluckman, 2017 ; Horton and Brown, 2018 ). Current disinvestment in the teachings of philosophy, particularly in the young, pulls us away from the basic foundations of knowledge and science, ultimately furthering the establishment of a post-truth society.

Concluding remarks

The process of devaluation of the humanities fortunately has not been enough to nullify the voice and ongoing work of their community. The World Humanities Conference, mentioned at the very beginning of this text, is a sign of the vitality and pertinence that this field still holds. When we look at the topics discussed at this conference, they are undoubtedly of great relevance for the society of today: ‘Humanity and the environment’; ‘Cultural identities, cultural diversities and intercultural relations: a global multicultural humanity’; ‘Borders and migrations’; ‘Heritage’; ‘History, memory and politics’; ‘The humanities in a changing world. What changes the world and in the world? What changes the humanities and in the humanities?’; and ‘Rebuilding the humanities, rebuilding humanism’. Events like this conference allow for the hope that a new and virtuous cycle for the humanities could be on the upswing for the benefit of all of society. One which will be more permeable and welcoming to all knowledge and skills, valuing all of its fields in a fair and impartial manner. Ultimately, the hope is to have a society that is zealous and proactive in the protection of a rich diversity of knowledge from the establishment and dominance of political hierarchies.

In: http://www.humanities2017.org/en .

Set of years for which OECD data are available in a usable way (verified in 23 May 2018 at OECD.Stat).

According to the ISCED 1997 (levels 5A and 6)—International Standard Classification of Education 1997 (first and second stages of tertiary education).

For this indicator, data for a subset of thirty OECD countries were used.

This systematization is based on the interpretation of a plurality of official statistics and reports on several countries (Costa, 2016 ).

Observations based on several publications, some of which are included in the bibliography (Benneworth and Jongbloed, 2010 ; Bod, 2011 ; Bok, 2007 ; Brinkley, 2009 ; Classen, 2012 ; Donoghue, 2010 ; European University Association, 2011 ; Fish, 2010 ; Gewirtz and Cribb, 2013 ; Gumport, 2000 ; Nussbaum, 2010 ; Weiland, 1992 ).

Harvard University ( http://artsandhumanities.fas.harvard.edu ), Stanford Humanities Center ( http://shc.stanford.edu/why-do-humanities-matter ), University of Chicago´s Master of Arts Program in the Humanities ( http://maph.uchicago.edu/directors ) and MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences ( http://shass.mit.edu/news/news-2014-power-of-humanities-arts-socialsciences-at-mit ). Data last updated from these websites: October 2015.

This statement is highly influenced by the thought of Norbert Elias, namely his concept of configuration (Elias, 2015 [1970]).

https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_berridge_why_tech_needs_the_humanities#t-7974 .

Altbach PG, Reisberg L, Rumbley LE (2009) Trends in global higher education: tracking an academic revolution. A report prepared for the UNESCO 2009 World Conference on Higher Education. UNESCO, Paris

Google Scholar

Armitage D et al. (2013) The teaching of the arts and humanities at Harvard College. Mapping the future. Harvard University, Cambridge

Baron N (2016) So you want to change the world? Nature 540:517–519

Article ADS CAS Google Scholar

Benneworth P, Jongbloed BW (2010) Who matters to universities? A stakeholder perspective on humanities, arts and social sciences valorisation. Higher Educ 59(5):567–588

Article Google Scholar

Bod R (2011) How the humanities changed the world: or why we should stop worrying and love the history of the humanities. Annuario 2011-2012–Unione Internazionale Degli Istituti Di Archeologia Storia E Storia dell’Arte in Roma 53:189–200

Bok D (2007, June 7) Remarks of President Derek Bok. Harvard Gazette . http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/06/remarks-of-president-derek-bok/

Bourdieu P (1984) Homo academicvs. Minuit, Paris

Boyd IL (2016) Take the long view. Nature 540:520–521

Brinkley A (2009) The landscape of humanities research and funding. http://archive201406.humanitiesindicators.org/essays/brinkley.pdf

Classen A (2012) Humanities-to be or not to be, that is the question. Humanities 1:54–61

Corm G (2013) Le Nouveau Gouvernment du Monde. Idéologies, Structures, Contre-Pouvoirs. La Découverte, Paris

Costa RC (2016) A desvalorização das humanidades: universidade, transformações sociais e neoliberalismo. Doctoral Thesis: ISCTE-IUL, Lisboa, https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/12371/1/tese%20nova%20subcapa.pdf

Costa RC (2017) Novas políticas de ensino superior para a quarta Revolução Industrial. Um lugar para as Humanidades. In: XVII Encontro Nacional de SIOT. APSIOT: Lisboa. https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/16251/1/04_xvii_Ros%C3%A1rio_Couto_Costa.pdf

Crouch C (2016) The knowledge corrupters: hidden consequences of the financial takeover of public life. Polity Press, Cambridge

Donoghue F (2010, September 5) Can the Humanities Survive the 21st Century? The Chronicle of Higher Education . http://chronicle.com/article/Can-the-Humanities-Survive-the/124222/

Elias N (2015) Introdução à Sociologia. Edições70, Lisboa, [1970]

Engwall L, Kipping M, Usdiken B (2010) Public Science Systems, Higher Education, and the Trajectory of Academic Disciplines: Business Studies in the Unites States and Europe. In: Whitley R, Glässer J, Engwall L (eds) Reconfiguring Knowledge Production. Changing Authority Relationship in the Sciences and their Consequences for Intellectual Innovation. Oxford University, Oxford, p 325–353

European University Association (2011) Impact of the economic crisis on European Universities. EUA, Brussels

Fish S (2010, October 11) The crisis of the humanities officially arrives. The New York Times . http://www3.qcc.cuny.edu/WikiFiles/file/The%20Crisis%20of%20the%20Humanities%20Officially%20Arrives%20-%20NYTimes.com-1.pdf

Gewirtz S, Cribb A (2013) Representing 30 years of Higher Education Change: UK Universities and The Times Higher. J Educ Admin Hist 45(1):58–83

Gibbons M (1998) Higher education relevance in the 21st Century. World Bank, Washington, D.C

Gluckman P (2017) Scientific advice in a troubled world. The Office of the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Committee, Wellington

Gumport PJ (2000) Academic restructuring: organizational change and institutional imperatives. Higher Educ 39:67–91

Hart Research Associates (2013) It takes More than a Major. Employer priorities for college learning and student success. Association of American Colleges and Universities, Washington, D.C

Heywood A (2014) Global politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London

Book Google Scholar

Horton P, Brown GW (2018) Integrating evidence, politics and society: a methodology for the science–policy interface. Pal Commun 4:42

Johnstone DB, Arora A, Experton W (1998) The financing and management of higher education. A status report on worldwide reforms. World Bank, Washington, DC

Kreager P (2013) Humanities graduates and the british economy. The hidden impact. University of Oxford, Oxford

Lamb H et al. (2012) Employability in the faculty of arts and social sciences. Final Report. CFE, Leicester

Levitt R et al. (2010) Assessing the impact of arts and humanities research at the University of Cambridge. Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, CA

Nussbaum MC (2010) Not for profit. Why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton University, Princeton

Peck J (2012) Neoliberalismo y crisis actual. Documentos y Aportes en Administración Pública y Gestión Estatal 12(19):7–27

OECD (2001) The new economy. Beyond the hype. Final Report on the OECD Growth Project. OECD, Paris

OXFAM (2019) Public good or private wealth? Oxfam GB, Oxford

UNESCO (2005) Towards knowledge societies. UNESCO, Paris

Weiland JS (1992) Humanities: introduction. In: Clark BR, Neave G (eds) The encyclopedia of higher education. Pergamon Press, Oxford, p 1981–1989

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-IUL), University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal

Rosário Couto Costa

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rosário Couto Costa .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The author declares no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Costa, R.C. The place of the humanities in today’s knowledge society. Palgrave Commun 5 , 38 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0245-6

Download citation

Received : 22 February 2018

Accepted : 25 March 2019

Published : 09 April 2019

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0245-6

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

Explore articles by subject
Guide to authors
Editorial policies

June 20, 2013

Why Study Humanities? What I Tell Engineering Freshmen

By John Horgan

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

What's the point of the humanities? Of studying philosophy, history, literature and "soft" sciences like psychology and poly sci? The Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, consisting of academic, corporate, political and entertainment big shots, tries to answer this question in a big new report to Congress . The report is intended to counter plunging enrollment in and support for the humanities, which are increasingly viewed as "luxuries that employment-minded students can ill afford," as The New York Times put it .

Titled "The Heart of the Matter," the report states: "As we strive to create a more civil public discourse, a more adaptable and creative workforce, and a more secure nation, the humanities and social sciences are the heart of the matter, the keeper of the republic—a source of national memory and civic vigor, cultural understanding and communication, individual fulfillment and the ideals we hold in common. They are critical to a democratic society and they require our support."

I find this a bit grandiose, and obscure. I have my own humble defense of the humanities, which I came up with a couple of years ago, when I started teaching a new course required for all freshmen at Stevens Institute of Technology. The syllabus includes Sophocles, Plato, Thucydides, Shakespeare, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, William James, Freud, Keynes, Eliot—you know, Greatest Hits of Western Civilization.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

I love teaching the class, but I don't assume that students love taking it. So on the first day of class I ask my wary-looking students, "How many of you would skip this class if it wasn't required?" After I assure them that they won't hurt my feelings, almost all raise their hands.

When I ask what the problem is, they say they came to Stevens for engineering, computer science, physics, pre-med, finance, digital music production, etc. They don't see the point of reading all this old impractical stuff that has nothing to do with their careers. When I ask them to guess why Stevens inflicts this course on them, someone usually says, smirking, To make us well-rounded.

Whenever I get the "well-rounded" response, I want to reply, "Does 'well-rounded' mean, like, chubby?" But I don't want to offend overweight students. Instead I say, "I don’t really know what 'well-rounded' means. Does it mean being able chitchat about Shakespeare at cocktail parties? I don't care about that." Then I give them my pitch for the course, which goes something like this:

We live in a world increasingly dominated by science. And that's fine. I became a science writer because I think science is the most exciting, dynamic, consequential part of human culture, and I wanted to be a part of that. Also, I have two college-age kids, and I'd be thrilled if they pursued careers in science, engineering or medicine. I certainly want them to learn as much science and math as they can, because those skills can help you get a great job.

But it is precisely because science is so powerful that we need the humanities now more than ever. In your science, mathematics and engineering classes, you're given facts, answers, knowledge, truth. Your professors say, "This is how things are." They give you certainty. The humanities, at least the way I teach them, give you uncertainty, doubt and skepticism.

The humanities are subversive. They undermine the claims of all authorities, whether political, religious or scientific. This skepticism is especially important when it comes to claims about humanity, about what we are, where we came from, and even what we can be and should be. Science has replaced religion as our main source of answers to these questions. Science has told us a lot about ourselves, and we're learning more every day.

But the humanities remind us that we have an enormous capacity for deluding ourselves. They also tell us that every single human is unique, different than every other human, and each of us keeps changing in unpredictable ways. The societies we live in also keep changing--in part because of science and technology! So in certain important ways, humans resist the kind of explanations that science gives us.

The humanities are more about questions than answers, and we're going to wrestle with some ridiculously big questions in this class. Like, What is truth anyway? How do we know something is true? Or rather, why do we believe certain things are true and other things aren't? Also, how do we decide whether something is wrong or right to do, for us personally or for society as a whole?

Also, what is the meaning of life? What is the point of life? Should happiness be our goal? Well, what the hell is happiness? And should happiness be an end in itself or just a side effect of some other more important goal? Like gaining knowledge, or reducing suffering?

Each of you has to find your own answer to these questions. Socrates, one of the philosophers we're going to read, said wisdom means knowing how little you know. Socrates was a pompous ass, but there is wisdom in what he says about wisdom.

If I do my job, by the end of this course you'll question all authorities, including me. You'll question what you've been told about the nature of reality, about the purpose of life, about what it means to be a good person. Because that, for me, is the point of the humanities: they keep us from being trapped by our own desire for certainty.

Postscript : My Stevens colleague Garry Dobbins, a philosopher, likes to give me a hard time, and I him, but I'm always provoked by his take on things, like this response to my post: "As to the Humanities being to teach us a healthy skepticism, we might all agree that this is indeed one of the consequences of such an education; but if this is necessary, as you make it out, because learning science alone we do not learn the importance, or necessity of 'uncertainty, doubt and skepticism,' something strange and even perverse has befallen the study of science! Those taking seriously the study of the history of science, for instance, will know that there was a time when science assumed the cultural pre-eminence it still occupies among us precisely because it did not teach dogmas, or as you put it, 'certainty.' On the contrary; scientific studies from the early modern period down to the early twentieth century, anyway, were liberal studies. Surely the justification of study of the Humanities, history, literature, philosophy and the rest, is not fundamentally different than the justification for the study of science. There are forces at work in human life, whether material or spiritual, which we seek to master, so far as possible. The language in which we express our knowledge of physical forces obeys somewhat different logical rules to that in which we express our knowledge of economics for example: but this doesn’t mean that the one is less knowledge, or logical, or important, than the other, surely! That you speak of the kind of knowledge to be gained by close study of Shakespeare, Thucydides, or Plato, as 'impractical' surely goes to show a misunderstanding as to what is practical in a human life. Unless you can show good reason to believe Socrates mistaken in thinking that self-knowledge is only reliable foundation for a good life."

I responded: "Garry, you're right that science if properly taught should incorporate skepticism. But science is becomingly increasingly dogmatic and arrogant in our era, which is why we need the humanities to foster a healthy anti-dogmatism."

Post-postscript : Hear me yammer further about the humanities (and other topics) with my buddy George Johnson (also a humanities major) on a recent Bloggingheads.tv: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/19616?in=58:19&out=61:16.

Painting by 18 th century painter Nicholas Guibal, Wikimedia Commons.

Here are 9 reasons why humanities matter. What’s your number 10?

I didn’t know these things either until I saw the list of winners of the 2013 Digital Humanities Awards and had a good look at an infographic called The Humanities Matter!

There’s research on the impact of the humanities; there’s evidence demonstrating how studying the humanities benefits society, employers and individuals.

I’ll list here nine arguments that the humanities are important. While you read them, try to think of what you would fill in as number 10.

The humanities help us understand others through their languages, histories and cultures.
They foster social justice and equality.
And they reveal how people have tried to make moral, spiritual and intellectual sense of the world.
The humanities teach empathy.
They teach us to deal critically and logically with subjective, complex, imperfect information.
And they teach us to weigh evidence skeptically and consider more than one side of every question.
Humanities students build skills in writing and critical reading.
The humanities encourage us to think creatively. They teach us to reason about being human and to ask questions about our world.
The humanities develop informed and critical citizens. Without the humanities, democracy could not flourish.

I believe these claims and I know they are based on solid research. I see much more, too. For example, I think that innovations based on research results in the natural sciences and medicine are more likely to be successful if their implementation is carried out in collaboration with humanists.

But for now, let me just say one more thing. The arguments in the list above are quotes. They come from an exciting infographic put together by some creative researchers working in a whole new field called Digital Humanities.

And that leads me to my 10th reason: If it weren’t for the humanities, we couldn’t have the digital humanities!

What’s your best reason for thinking the humanities are important? If you have one you like, send me a tweet or put it in a comment below, and if I get enough, I’ll include it in a new blog post!

While you’re thinking about that, enjoy a much cooler presentation of the nine reasons the humanities matter — along with many more important numbers, too.

The infographic you see below was made by Melissa Terras , Ernesto Priego , Alan Liu , Geoff Rockwell , Stéfan Sinclair , Christine Hensler, and Lindsay Thomas over at 4humanities.org . Enjoy!

One of the problems with tracing arguments such as these is the lack of precision. We start off discussing the humanities, and then we segue into AHSS. Of course the majority of politicians in Westminister have studied AHSS, since PPE is almost a prerequisite to a political career.

Of arguments 1, 2, 4, and 9 above, there are enough counterexamples that I begin to wonder if we do ourselves favours by having examples that aren’t solid. If the above arguments were presented as ‘evidence’ in the social sciences, I can imagine the collective disciplinary eyebrow heading skyward in scepticism and questioning the lack of methodological rigour.

Helen Small’s recent book “The Value of the Humanities” goes through these and other justifications for the humanities, tracing their genealogies, and without finally plumping for one. My sense is that you and she have a similar, cumulative sense of argument, that there is no, one, stand-out, knock-down argument for the humanities, but rather that it’s an ecology of such arguments. The above infographic is, of course, a bit of fun, but it’s a an appeal-to-Buzzfeed defence of the humanities, and we can do better.

It is a bit popularistic, I agree. I think the “new” arguments that deserve careful development include inter-disciplinary perspectives. Why does technological innovation, for example, need to be carried out with the input not only of physicists and chemists, but also French teachers and art historians? What do we mean by “digital humanities” and how is that going to lead to new knowledge and maybe even new applications affecting daily lives? There are many strategies to take. And while I sometimes find political anti-humanities arguments exhausting, I actually think it’s important for everyone to be able to say something sensible about what they’re up to. So … I’ll keep working on this 🙂

Thank you for the idea of making the list.

In addition to that, I think the significance of research in SSH (I do not differentiate them) can be also be justified by the following argument:

The human factor plays a crucial role in solving the grand challenges of mankind (ageing, energy supply, environmental issues, climate change, etc.). That’s why research on human values and behaviour is vital.

The biggest problem in the world is lack of mutual understanding among people, social groups, religions, nations. SSH researchers are specialists in that.

All modern professions are based on interaction between people. Trade, services, manufacturing, administration, education, and personal life benefit from the ability to conduct proper communication. Even small progress in that may lead to big results.

Arto Mustajoki Dean of the Faculty of Arts Helsinki University

The humanities as disciplines of study have their own intrinsic value. Apple, is perhaps, one of the best market/commercial examples of how the humanities permeate all aspects of human life. Apple’s ability to evolve and dominate the markets is largely because of its understanding of the human aspect of engaging with technologies, being able to predict and teach the consumer what s/he wants from his/her experience with their device. There’d be a lot fewer conflicts in the world if we all were in better touch with our humanity! Great posting!

9 Trackbacks

Circles of Innovation » Humanities for Everyone
4 Benefits of taking a random module in varsity – MiCampusMag
as my humanities journey ends .. – My Understanding
The Humanities Matter – Arts & Humanities Matters
When Good Isn’t Good Enough . . . Things I’ve Learned :: Jim Cloughley
10 Humanities You Should Learn to Become an Outstanding Entrepreneur
The Humanities-A Film Review – Caitlin's Blog
Here are 9 reasons why Humanities matter – Sky Blog
Democracy In Higher Education – Shameka's Portfolio

I encourage you to republish this article online and in print, under the following conditions.

You have to credit the author .
If you’re republishing online, you must use our page view counter and link to its appearance here (included in the bottom of the HTML code), and include links from the story. In short, this means you should grab the html code below the post and use all of it.
Unless otherwise noted, all my pieces here have a Creative Commons Attribution licence -- CC BY 4.0 -- and you must follow the (extremely minimal) conditions of that license.
Keeping all this in mind, please take this work and spread it wherever it suits you to do so!

This article was originally published on Curt Rice - Science in Balance . Read the original article .

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

Essay Database >
Essay Examples >
Essays Topics >
Essay on Students

Why Study Humanities Essay Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Students , Social Studies , Human , World , Knowledge , Life , Future , Culture

Words: 1300

Published: 11/14/2021

ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS

Human behavior, relationships, ethics, and life experiences cannot be learned adequately in a science lab where humans are subjected to several scientific experiments to prove a certain theory, claim or concept regarding human practice, deeds, and reasoning since every person respond and act differently to stimuli in their locality. As such, life experiences and human behavior can only be learned exhaustively in real world environment through real-time events or borrowing from the historical perspective. Thus, humanities offer an opportunity for us to be critical in assessing events, human acts and at the same time think creatively and provide new insights to a variety of phenomenon in problem-solving. Arguably, we are living in a world where there is chaos between the old and modern traditions, hence, humanities provide its learners with skills and knowledge to liberate themselves from life dilemmas by providing understanding on human culture and values that are cherished by individuals, in particular, region and provide ways to adapt to current world while still keeping old traditions and how to incorporate change without compromising humanity. Notably, the current society has been obsessed with the notion of “employability degrees” for instance engineering without considering the knowledge gained by studying Humanities. The connection between job market and the studies which students decide to pursue is a major concern in the public arena which has put students in a dilemma about their future and what they ought to study in order to be marketable for jobs when they clear college/university education. However, this stigma can be overcome by higher learning institution teaching students how they can apply the knowledge gain in class to real-world scenarios and future events. Thus, there is the need to change how humanities courses are delivered and tuned them to the current business world, politics, economics and human resources. The humanities ought to be a backbone of all disciplines, not elective courses when it comes to providing knowledge and understanding of human behavior and what needs to be done to manage citizens, workforce couple with consumers across the globe and ensure success different entities in achieving their goals in future and providing services that are culture sensitive. According to Terry Eagleton, it is nearly impossible to eliminate humanities from the University since they are a major component of these institutions which they cannot survive without (Eagleton). If humanities are removed from college, this will turn these institutions into training and research facilities which will only concentrate on passing knowledge from one generation to another or from tutor to students without evoking critical thinking and being creative with the knowledge gained in class (Eagleton). As such, these institutions would be similar to military training grounds where recruits ought to follow orders without questioning the importance, origin, future applicability and effects to mankind of skills and information being passed to them by their tutor. Therefore, from Terry perspective, I agree that humanities and other disciplines go hand in hand with each other. There is a common belief that real men ought to take engineering and alike course while those who considered weak ‘sissies’ should take humanities, but this is far from the truth since subjects such as ethics, history, and philosophy cut across all discipline. These small portions of humanities courses taught as elective subjects help students studying law and engineering have a good understanding of the origin of some of the concepts and effects to humans. Thus, the usefulness of humanities cannot be ignored since they form an integral part of the education system which deal social aspect of every discipline. The humanities ensure that human values, culture, and traditions are maintained in the modern societies to protect the social order (Eagleton). Universities have a vital role to play in ensuring humanities studies are maintained to offer a venue to preserve human values, culture, and wisdom which are under threat from industrial capitalism whose main aim is to make profits despite the adverse effects it impacts on the environment and humanity. As such, universities ought to be the center of critique, where they question and assess the effect of modernization and globalization to societies. However, according to Terry this is far from the truth since Universities are yet to take their right place in the society as being the center of wisdom and critique since they are controlled by the politics through states funding, as such, Universities are fighting to retain the status quo than challenging social justice and human welfare to secure a bright future for all persons (Eagleton). There have been calls around the political and economic sphere to cut state funding on humanities courses but increase the funding on the scientific, business, law and engineering courses which guarantee employment right after graduating from the University (Moorthy). There is a common belief that humanities are lesser courses and do not assure students employment after college. Thus, they are not important disciplines which can drive the economy. However, Terry assert that, human values and principles should be central to everything and Universities through humanities should fight for social justice, maintain our traditions and offer imaginations of better future by improving human welfare (Eagleton). Martha Nussbaum asserts that higher learning prepares and equips students with necessary knowledge which will be instrumental in dealing with challenges related to globalization and citizenship, in addition, to have imagination thinking where a person can see things from another person’s perspective while improving their talents (Nussbaum). However, there is a segment of the society which see the modern learning as immoral, rebellious and which has the potential of destroying the nation which is closely related to Socrates’ teaching (Nussbaum). According to Martha Nussbaum, the modern education ought to liberate students from old traditions where they were supposed to follow instructions to the contemporary environment where they are encouraged to take matters into their hands and starts thinking, questioning, examine life dynamics, reflect and critic common human practices from business to political debate (Nussbaum). This will enhance personal growth, and as such; individual will discover themselves, govern their life, be in a position to identify challenges in their locality, offer solutions and respect the dignity of other persons (Wendy). I support Martha Nussbaum comments that there is the need for University to change old ways of teaching allow students to have the capacity to think for themselves. We are living in a diverse society which is a democratic couple with internationalization (Nussbaum). Thus, Universities ought to prepare students to be good citizens who can interact with people from other nations with different culture without difficulties. Therefore, humanities play an essential role in shaping students to have a global mindset which aims at solving problems of wider spectrum across different culture, ethnic and religion across the globe (Carolyn). Martha assert that humanities not only prepare students for future careers but to have concrete knowledge about life and citizenship (Nussbaum).This will help students to reason logically, question and test the information they come across to have an accuracy of the facts contained in the information before making judgments (Nussbaum). Therefore, humanities are essential to every student and need to be incorporated in their studies irrespective of their major.

Works Cited

Carolyn, Gregoire. "This Is Irrefutable Evidence Of The Value Of A Humanities Education." The Huffington Post. N.p., 2014. Web. 11 Jan. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/28/the-unusual-college-major_n_4654757.html>. Eagleton, Terry. "The death of universities." (2014): Web. Moorthy, Neelesh. "Value of Humanities Education Doubted in Academic Circles." The Chronicle. N.p., 2015. Web. 11 Jan. 2016. <http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2015/02/value-humanities-education-doubted-academic-circles>. Nussbaum, Martha. "EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP IN AN ERA OF GLOBAL CONNECTION." (2002): Web. Wendy, Earle. "Let's Stop Being Defensive About the Value of Arts Degrees | Higher Education Network | The Guardian." The Guardian. N.p., 2014. Web. 11 Jan. 2016. <http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/may/29/study-arts-humanites-enrichment>. .

Cite this page

Share with friends using:

Removal Request

Finished papers: 431

This paper is created by writer with

ID 277360072

If you want your paper to be:

Well-researched, fact-checked, and accurate

Original, fresh, based on current data

Eloquently written and immaculately formatted

275 words = 1 page double-spaced

Get your papers done by pros!

Other Pages

Camera argumentative essays, empathy argumentative essays, empowerment argumentative essays, fossil fuels argumentative essays, crash argumentative essays, integrity argumentative essays, housing argumentative essays, beer argumentative essays, alternative energy business plans, ambassador business plans, bachelors degree business plans, developing country business plans, publishing business plans, parking business plans, drugs literature reviews, adolescent argumentative essays, essay on analysis of sonnys blues by james baldwin, instructional design the radio essay, george washingtons farewell address essay, literature review on you cant take it with you, events that could be analyzed as everyday resistance essay, the advantages to reading literature review, literature review on the power behind the throne the insidious evil of lady macbeth, essay on neighborhood watch research study, research paper on nazi medicine, essay on teacher leader data decision making, course work on managing performance, critical thinking on accounting, egyptian pyramids research paper, politics and the issue of unemployment term paper example, what are the characteristics of an efficient market essay examples, research paper on basic legal principles, example of tchaikovskys 1812 overture essay, relationship between the president and congress research paper examples, example of domestic homegrown terrorism essay, apparatus essays, fall essays, fight essays, lifetime essays, originality essays, hdtv essays, kinematics essays, fistfight essays.

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

This website uses cookies to understand how you use the website and to improve your experience. By continuing to use the website, you accept the University of New England’s use of cookies and similar technologies. To learn more about our use of cookies and how to manage your browser cookie settings, please review our Privacy Notice .

UNE’s Susan McHugh publishes research essay on human-animal interactions

Portrait of Susan McHugh against a blue backdrop

UNE’s Susan McHugh, Ph.D., professor of English with the School of Arts and Humanities , recently published an essay in Humanimalia , an interdisciplinary journal that explores and advances the scholarship on human-animal relations and promotes dialogue between the academic community and those working closely with animals in nonacademic fields.

McHugh’s essay, “Apace: Dogwalking, Kinaesthetic Empathy, and Posthuman Ethos in the Great North Woods,” seeks to inspire extensions of empathy toward the ineffable relations that structure nature-culture borderlands. According to McHugh, the essay “ponders an idiosyncratic collection of evidence of more-than-human comings and goings, witnessed on two feet, accompanied by four more, in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.”

McHugh achieves this by writing about close-range encounters with wildlife she experienced on her daily dog walks across the seasons. Her aim is to model the development of what she describes as a posthuman ethos through developing a storied appreciation for the elusive, unnamed intimacies of nonhuman neighborliness that include, but are not limited to, witnessing dying and death.

Also published in the current edition of Humanimalia is a review by Emelia Quinn, assistant professor of world literatures and environmental humanities at the University of Amsterdam, of McHugh’s latest book, “Animal Satire,” which McHugh wrote in collaboration with colleague Robert McKay.

At UNE, McHugh researches and teaches courses in writing, literary theory, animal studies, and plant studies. She has delivered keynote lectures and invited talks in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S. Her ongoing research focuses on the intersections of biological and cultural extinction.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest private university , with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees . In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college , Maine’s only dental college , a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs , as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees , natural and social sciences degrees , arts and humanities degrees , and business degrees .

See us on twitter
See us on instagram
See us on facebook
See us on linkedin

Medical Humanities & the Arts Program

Stanford storytelling and medicine scholars class of 2024, meet our team.

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Marit UyHam is a rising sophomore at Dartmouth College. She plans to study biology and hopes to attend medical school. At Dartmouth, Marit works in a biological anthropology lab which analyzes microfossils with a focus on prehistoric China. Outside of class, Marit is involved in multiple dance programs, and she plays violin with the Dartmouth Chamber Orchestra.

With over six years of experience in healthcare, Amal Sharif has dedicated her career to improving patient outcomes through innovative approaches. Having worked at Highland Hospital, a Level 1 trauma center in the East Bay, Amal has firsthand experience in high-pressure medical environments and understands the critical importance of effective communication and empathy in patient care. Amal holds a Mathematics, Psychology, and Economics degree from Laney College. Amal enjoys exploring her creativity through various artistic pursuits, such as pastel, and drawing.

Halle Boroski is a senior at the College of William and Mary, finishing her degree in Neuroscience on the pre-medical track with a minor in Public Health and a concentration in Health, Society, and Wellness. Halle plans to pursue graduate school post-graduation before pursuing medical school. She is involved in W&M public health club, working at the admissions office and wellness center, and working in a research lab focused on learning and positive study techniques. In her spare time, Halle enjoys being with friends, reading, and walking in Williamsburg.

Meher Gandhi is pursuing her Master’s in Comparative Literature at University of California, Davis. She has a BA triple major degree in English, Psychology and Media and a diploma in folklore and cultural studies. Her interest in medical humanities, especially memory studies and cognitive poetics, guides her work in the intersections between literature and psychology. Her research internship with the Center for Memory Studies, IIT Madras bolstered in her the desire to move ahead in this direction. She also holds experience in publishing (including Penguin Random House India), literary festivals, and art spaces. Her other interests include writing and reading poems, teaching, and exploring art and architecture. She believes that her future research works will feature a trialogue between literature, psychology, and architecture.

Peter Park is a 4 th year medical student pursuing Psychiatry. He has a background in theatre and comedy improv and has integrated his interests in medicine and the arts through hosting local events for medical students to share their experiences on stage via Stethoscope Stage and HuMed Short Story Night in partnership with TCU Burnett School of Medicine. Additionally, he is collaborating with TCU in establishing the Narrative Medicine Consortium of Texas to unite Texas medical schools in increasing Narrative Medicine education. His work has been featured on The Nocturnists Podcast, MedMic.com, and Crohn's & Colitis Young Adult Network. Peter plans to pursue Psychiatry with interests in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Eating Disorders, and GI-adjacent Psychiatry.

Keren Shafer is a rising MS1 at the John Sealy School of Medicine -UTMB Health-. She is pursuing a medical and master’s in public health degree as a stepping stone to becoming a pediatrician or OBGYN. She graduated with a Distinguished History degree with a double minor in Biology and Chemistry. Her interest in Historical writing includes women’s, Chinese, and medical history. She has presented her research at the College of Liberal and Fine Arts Conference at her Undergraduate institution; her most recent project was “Women in Medicine: A Look at Specialty Clusters.” She is now shifting towards immigrant narratives as a form of self-expression and ownership of her life experiences. Her hobbies include quilting, reading, and board games.

Tabitha Hiyane is an English literature student at UCLA and an Opinion columnist for the Daily Bruin . Holding a vested interest in the medical humanities, her archival research has explored how intimate narratives of embodiment, contextualized through health and illness, are both particularized and shared as part of the human condition - the very stories inscribed in the histories of our humanity. While continuing to grow as a writer, she plans on applying to medical school, aiming to discover and put into practice what it means to care for another in all aspects of being.

Nada Kaissieh holds a Masters of Bioethics from Johns Hopkins University and is currently advancing her medical education at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, working towards her MD. With over six years of dedicated involvement in mental health advocacy, she champions for the betterment of psychiatric care. Combining her expertise in writing and photography, she endeavors to reshape community and cultural perceptions of mental illness. Nada spearheads an ongoing project aimed at integrating mental health education into local elementary schools, striving to increase visibility and accessibility to support and resources.

Soo Yeon (Jean) Chun is a rising junior at Stanford University planning to major in Symbolic Systems on the Neuroscience track. Since middle school, she has been fascinated by the creative, emotional, and linguistic capabilities of the mind. An aspiring psychiatrist and writer, she is deeply interested in the power of creative writing—particularly poetry —to guide and heal. In her free time, she enjoys drumming, discovering new music, and reading and writing poetry.

Maria Luiza Fernandes is a sophomore undergraduate student from Brazil. She is graduating in Pharmacy and plans to become a neuroscientist. Her research interests cover a range of disciplines under the umbrella of the pharmaceutical profession and cognitive science. As an Immerse Education fellow, over the past year she has worked on a research project on Alzheimer's disease, including the applications of gene editing in the treatment of pathologies associated with the nervous system. She is currently involved in a learning community on psychopathologies and an executive member of FLOTA, a project aimed at developing young female leaders around the Americas.

Robinrenee Hamre is a sophomore undergraduate student at UCLA, majoring in Biology. She is a Native American student, originally from Anaheim, California. Robinrenee is passionate about studying Neonatology and pursuing a career in the medical field, in hopes to become a NICU Doctor. Some of her hobbies are writing, running, and reading poetry.

Mehakpreet Kaur Saggu , a Pearson Scholar at the University of Toronto, is passionately devoted to making neuroscience and psychology approachable for everyone. Her journey into this field began with her love for literature, which sparked a sense of wonder and fascination with Oliver Sacks, and this ongoing saga of inspiration has continued to shape her work. From conducting research in the Decision Neuroscience Lab to helping establish a new Cognitive Science undergraduate journal, Mehakpreet's dedication to simplifying the complexities of the human brain is evident. She is grateful for the opportunity to merge her academic pursuits with her goal of bringing advanced science closer to public understanding. As a researcher, author, and advocate, she endeavors to share the wonders of the human brain, hoping to enlighten and serve the broader community.

Jess Skyleson (they/them) is a former aerospace engineer and Ayurvedic practitioner who began writing poetry after being diagnosed with stage IV cancer at age 39. Currently in remission, they’re now pursuing an MFA in Digital + Media at Rhode Island School of Design, with particular interests in narrative medicine, computational poetry, and sonic art. Their poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies throughout the US and UK, and they have been awarded the 2022 Hippocrates Poetry and Medicine Prize, an Honorable Mention in the Tor House Poetry Prize, and were a finalist for the Yemassee Poetry Prize and Kalanithi Writing Award. They are presently exploring the integration of the body, poetry, and sound, and one of their sound poetry projects was recently selected for exhibition in the New Media category at Brown University’s Ivy Film Festival. Jess facilitates creative writing and art workshops for patients, medical providers, and caregivers, and they are hoping to develop collaborative pathways across art mediums and personal/professional experiences of medicine.

Emily Koseck is a medical student at Queen’s University in Canada. She is currently working at Toronto Metropolitan University on the development of a new medical school with an innovative approach to education that will meet the current pain points in the healthcare system. Her interests include improving healthcare delivery and outcomes through bioethics, trauma-informed care, and addressing systemic biases. Emily enjoys being active, spending time outdoors, and volunteering at a wildlife rehabilitation centre.

Shreya Gunda

Grace Reed

Sohini Dasgupta

Share full article

Supported by

She Just Earned Her Doctorate at 17. Now, She’ll Go to the Prom.

Dorothy Jean Tillman II of Chicago made history as the youngest person to earn a doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health at Arizona State University.

Dorothy Jean Tillman II stands at a lectern wearing a black cap and gown at Arizona State University’s commencement.

By Alexandra E. Petri

When Dorothy Jean Tillman II successfully defended her dissertation in November 2023 to earn her doctoral degree from Arizona State University, she couldn’t wait to share the news with her best friend.

“It was a surreal moment,” Ms. Tillman said, “because it was crazy I was doing it in the first place.”

Ms. Tillman, at only 17, became the youngest person to earn a doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health from Arizona State’s College of Health Solutions, all before she was eligible to vote. Earlier this month, Ms. Tillman, now 18, took part in Arizona State’s commencement ceremony and delivered remarks as the outstanding 2024 graduate at the College of Health Solution’s convocation.

Lesley Manson, program director for the doctorate of behavioral health at Arizona State and Ms. Tillman’s doctoral chair, said Ms. Tillman displayed extraordinary perseverance, hard work and dedication for her young age, tackling every challenge head-on.

“She can serve as a real role model,” Ms. Manson said.

Ms. Tillman, called DJ by her family and friends, was an early bloomer. She grew up in Chicago and was home-schooled from a young age, first in a group setting through online classes, and then by her mother, Jimalita Tillman, a single parent with a background in community theater.

Ms. Tillman was part of a gifted program before transitioning to home-schooling. Jimalita Tillman continued her daughter on an accelerated track: By the time she was 8, she was taking high school classes. While most 9-year-olds were learning math and reading, Ms. Tillman was starting college online.

At the time, they lived with Jimalita Tillman’s mother, Dorothy Wright Tillman, a civil rights activist who worked alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was a Chicago alderman. Ms. Tillman is her grandmother’s namesake (hence the II at the end of Ms. Tillman’s name).

During her early college days, Ms. Tillman’s classroom was often a Starbucks in Chicago, and her days began as soon it opened, she said. Her go-to order was an iced peach green tea with lemonade.

“Around the time when kids went to lunch, we’d be closing the computer,” said Ms. Tillman, who said her discipline and focus come from her grandmother.

Because of her age, Ms. Tillman lived at home while pursuing her higher education, and most of her coursework was online — a challenge for a self-described social butterfly. “I do love meeting new people and talking to people and understanding them and how their brains work,” she said. She found other ways to stay connected with friends through after-school activities.

At 10, she earned her associate degree in psychology at the College of Lake County in Illinois. At 12, she received her Bachelor of Science in humanities at Excelsior College in New York, and at 14, she earned a Master of Science from Unity College in Maine. She chose those fields because they can help scientists “understand why people treat the environment the way they do,” she told Time for Kids in a July 2020 interview.

Ellen Winner, a professor of psychology at Boston College and the author of “Gifted Children: Myths and Realities,” said that children like Ms. Tillman have a motivational intensity she calls a “rage to master.”

“One of the reasons they push themselves is they have a high, innate ability of some kind, and so learning, in whatever they are gifted in, comes easily to them and it’s very pleasurable,” she said. Schools are often not equipped for such gifted children, she added, which may lead parents to home-school their children. The trade-off, she and some experts say, is missing out on socialization and learning with children their age.

“There’s no perfect solution to kids like this,” Ms. Winner said.

Jimalita Tillman said she was sure her daughter was finished with higher education after earning her master’s degree. Ms. Tillman had just launched an organization to support Black youth in Chicago interested in STEM and the arts called the Dorothy Jeanius STEAM Leadership Institute. It was 2020, just after the beginning of the pandemic.

She was surprised when her daughter said she wanted to pursue her doctorate, and even tried to dissuade Ms. Tillman. But Ms. Tillman wanted to help young people with their mental health. She told her mother to trust her.

“I had to follow her lead,” Jimalita Tillman, 42, said.

Ms. Tillman was accepted into the management concentration at Arizona State’s College of Health Solutions, an online doctorate program. Her thesis on developing programs to reduce the stigma for college students seeking mental health services was based on a study she conducted for an in-person internship at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Ms. Tillman hopes her story resonates with girls who are talkative, outgoing “out-there kind of girls who are trying to figure themselves out but are very smart.”

“I want them to see someone who has taken that energy, sparkle and excitement and packaged it in a way that is classy and beautiful,” she said.

Ms. Tillman may now have her doctorate, but she’s also excited about teenage things — like attending a prom. On Saturday, she going as her best friend’s date to his senior dance. They’re taking an Escalade outfitted with stars on the ceiling, she said, a feature she requested and that her mother made happen.

Ms. Tillman has been focused on school and her professional pursuits, and she plans to host her institute’s summer camp again. Then, she said, she plans to take a beat and have a “fun teenage summer,” doing things she loves, discovering new hobbies and figuring herself out in the process.

“I want to focus on who I am,” she said.

Professor Jeffrey Gonzalez publishes review essay in “Public Books”

Posted in: English Department , Homepage News and Events

screen grab from PublicBooks.org post. headline "We Were Not Than Band" - But What Was Sonic Youth. Black & White image of band is below

English professor Jeffrey Gonzalez recently published a review essay discussing Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore’s memoir, Sonic Life , in the online magazine Public Books . Professor Gonzalez’s review, which appeared on May 16, was included in Lithub’s “ LitHub Daily, ” whose editors describe their selections as “the best of the literary internet,” on May 20.

IMAGES

1101 Humanities Essay
Humanities
Essay 1
Reflection Essay on Why Study Humanities (400 Words)
(DOC) Why Study the Humanities?
Why Study Humanities 1 .docx

VIDEO

Why Study Humanities?
+1 Humanities students must know |ഹ്യൂമാനിറ്റീസ് എടുത്തവർക്ക് അഭിനന്ദനങൾ
Boost Your Productivity just like Night Before Exam
Why study Humanities & Social Sciences at UNSW Canberra?
Why study English Literature at Glasgow?
Humanities കഴിഞ്ഞവർക്കുള്ള 5 കോഴ്‌സുകൾ

COMMENTS

Why we still need to study the humanities
Learning about ourselves - through the various humanities - helps us to create a better world. "It's the human in humanities that is worth studying. Humanities can tell us about ourselves, how we interact and get along and why we sometimes don't!". "Studying the humanities helps us to better understand who we are, our identity as ...
The Importance of Studying Humanities: [Essay Example], 772 words
This essay delves into the importance of studying humanities, including its capacity to foster a profound understanding of humanity, appreciation for cultural diversity, and the ability to engage with complex social issues. Moreover, it explores how the study of humanities contributes to the development of a well-rounded education and promotes ...
Why are humanities important
The humanities help us understand the core aspects of human life in context to the world around us. The study of humanities also helps us better prepare for a better future. They teach you skills in the areas of critical thinking, creativity, reasoning, and compassion. Whatever your focus, you'll learn the stories that shape our world, helping ...
Why Are the Humanities Important?
The humanities are important because they offer students opportunities to discover, understand and evaluate society's values at various points in history and across every culture. The fields of study in the humanities include the following: Literature —the study of the written word, including fiction, poetry and drama.
Introduction: Why Study the Humanities?
The Humanities: Exploring What It Means to Be Human. The humanities can be described as the study of human experience and the way in which people define and document their experience through philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history, politics, and language. Viewing the human experience through a humanities lens provides insights ...
Collections: The Practical Case on Why We Need the Humanities
Oh, the Humanities! Now I want to note here the standard defense of the humanities, which is that the study of human culture, literature and art enriches the soul and the experience of life. This is, to be clear, undoubtedly true. There is joy and richness in the incredible kaleidoscope of human expression and a deep wisdom in the realization ...
Why We Need the Humanities
Having spent trillions of dollars fighting terrorism with bullets and bombs, we need literature and the humanities now more than ever, because they strive to heal, to nurture the most priceless of all our possessions: our humanity. Permission required for reprinting, reproducing, or other uses. James A. W. Heffernan, an emeritus professor of ...
Why study humanities?
Dictators know this, which is why they rewrite history to suit their political ends and deny their subjects independent access to their past. They do it because they know that resistance to their ...
Explore the Toolkit
The Study the Humanities Toolkit presents data to help you demonstrate the professional and personal value of studying the humanities. There are six cohesive arguments, each of which is accompanied by a brief essay, related articles, talking points, and supporting evidence packaged into charts, quotes, data points, and profiles.
Humanities essays
The humanities refer to subjects that study people, their ideas, history, and literature. ... This is probably the one feature that distinguishes humanities essays from other sorts of writing. This does not mean that scientific papers or social science essays aren't balanced discussions: it means that a humanities essay is more likely to have ...
Why Study Humanities
As a Humanities student, you'll bring artistic, historical, critical and philosophical reflection to bear while you explore and examine our past and present, our thought, our cultures, and societies, as well as our existence. You'll learn about the world and learn about yourself. Gain knowledge and learn to question.
Why the Humanities Matter
Why the Humanities Matter. The study of reason and imagination, which takes place in the humanities, involves grappling — through reading, discussion and frequent writing — with important texts and ideas throughout history and across cultures. The study of other languages enables close encounters with surprising new ways of thinking about ...
Why Study the Humanities?
In the Humanities at UW, students will be trained to: Develop a global perspective and an understanding of diverse cultures. Think critically and communicate expressively across media and genres. Engage with texts, languages, history, culture and civilization. Push boundaries, embrace scholarship, and investigate issues of power and difference.
Value of the Humanities
Donald Drakeman, Why We Need the Humanities (2016) This book is an economic and practical exploration of the value of humanities, inspired by an Oxford study examining the contributions of its humanities graduates to the British economy. Drakeman argues that students of the humanities are not confined in their professional options, but instead ...
Why Study the Humanities
The study of the humanities can also be used to realize differing interpretations of life and history. Studying facts of the past helps to understand literature of the past. Art reflects the cultures of the past, and shows how we achieved what we have today. For example, the Song of Roland was very biased about the Saracens (Muslims).
Why (Study) the Humanities?: The View from Science
Abstract. This chapter addresses the relationship between the humanistic and scientific visions of the human being, says why the humanistic vision is not undermined by what science is teaching us about ourselves, and then turns to a discussion of the kind of understanding that the humanities provide.
(PDF) The Value of the Humanities
Innovation: the humanities deal with questions of motivation, organi-. sation and action, which are essential components of creativity. and entrepreneurship, and so the humanities promote a ...
Why we still need to study the humanities in a STEM world
Yet there are more important reasons for studying subjects within the humanities — such as philosophy, history, literature, religion, art, music, and language — and we ignore them at our own ...
Why study the humanities and arts
The humanities and the arts are central to all human cultures throughout time. Their study can facilitate deeper intercultural understanding and lay the groundwork for a civically engaged life. They can also prepare you to think critically, act creatively, and succeed in a rapidly changing world. Below are posts written by PCC humanities and ...
The place of the humanities in today's knowledge society
With regard to the internal impact of shrinking resources within academic departments of the humanities, we can identify several clues as to how the University has generally been placing a lower ...
Why Study Humanities? What I Tell Engineering Freshmen
In your science, mathematics and engineering classes, you're given facts, answers, knowledge, truth. Your professors say, "This is how things are." They give you certainty. The humanities, at ...
Here are 9 reasons why humanities matter. What's your number 10?
The humanities teach empathy. They teach us to deal critically and logically with subjective, complex, imperfect information. And they teach us to weigh evidence skeptically and consider more than one side of every question. Humanities students build skills in writing and critical reading. The humanities encourage us to think creatively.
Essay About Why Study Humanities
Therefore, humanities play an essential role in shaping students to have a global mindset which aims at solving problems of wider spectrum across different culture, ethnic and religion across the globe (Carolyn). Martha assert that humanities not only prepare students for future careers but to have concrete knowledge about life and citizenship ...
UNE's Susan McHugh publishes research essay on human-animal interactions
UNE's Susan McHugh, Ph.D., professor of English with the School of Arts and Humanities, recently published an essay in Humanimalia, an interdisciplinary journal that explores and advances the scholarship on human-animal relations and promotes dialogue between the academic community and those working closely with animals in nonacademic fields. ...
Class of 2024
Meher Gandhi is pursuing her Master's in Comparative Literature at University of California, Davis.She has a BA triple major degree in English, Psychology and Media and a diploma in folklore and cultural studies. Her interest in medical humanities, especially memory studies and cognitive poetics, guides her work in the intersections between literature and psychology.
She Just Earned Her Doctorate at 17. Now, She'll Go to the Prom
Ms. Tillman earned her doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health from the school at age 17. Tillman Family, via Associated Press. By Alexandra E. Petri. May 22, 2024, 10:10 a.m. ET. When ...
Professor Jeffrey Gonzalez Publishes Review Essay In "Public Books
English professor Jeffrey Gonzalez recently published a review essay discussing Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore's memoir, Sonic Life, in the online magazine Public Books. Professor Gonzalez's review, which appeared on May 16, was included in Lithub's "LitHub Daily," whose editors describe their selections as "the best of the literary internet," on May 20.